


I'm Reaching Out

by ceterisparibus



Series: Ella [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Catholicism, Character Study, F/M, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Gratuitous non-wearing of glasses, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Karen Page perseveres, Legal Drama, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Stick was the actual worst, Suicide Attempt, this story exploded and it's the fault of all you people commenting such brilliant things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-02 06:53:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 46,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16781866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceterisparibus/pseuds/ceterisparibus
Summary: Matt violates The List. The not-actually-final part of "Ella" and will totally not make sense if you haven't read the previous installments.





	1. All I See is Rage

Matt

Maggie wanted to watch him work out. Which…Matt was ten minutes into his warmup and still wasn’t sure how he felt about her presence. She was sitting on one of the benches, occasionally doing something on her phone, but mostly keeping her attention on him. She was such a mix of emotions it was impossible to read.

When she’d first entered the gym, she’d stopped dead and inhaled deeply. “Smells just like he did.”

Now, when Matt finished the pushups and sit-ups, Maggie was already standing over his head with a bottle of water. He grunted as he stood up. “Mom, I’m fine.”

“You have to stay hydrated.”

“Mom, please. I’ve been doing this for years.”

She screwed the lid back on. “Right. Of course.”

He instantly felt guilty. Which was stupid. This whole thing was stupid and uncomfortable. He opened his mouth to say something, couldn’t think of anything, and turned his attention to the punching bag. He sunk his fists deeply into the material a few times before picking up the pace, a series of quick jabs with no time to drive deeply into the bag.

After about five minutes of this, Maggie stood up and circled him. “You look just like him, you know.”

He spun and back-kicked the bag. “From what I remember—” He struck out with his elbow, “—I seriously doubt that.” True, he hadn’t seen himself since he was nine. But in his memory, Jack Murdock was far more…grown up.

“He’d be so proud of you.”

He hit the bag harder. “Mom.”

“Am I embarrassing you?”

Yes. No? “Distracting me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She backed off but couldn’t keep quiet for long. He should’ve known, really, when he’d agreed to let her come. “Did he teach you any of this?”

Matt shook his head and threw a hard jab. “Nah. Didn’t want me to fight.” Jab, jab, cross. “I picked some up just from watching him.” Jab, cross, uppercut. “Most of this is from Stick.”

“Stick boxed?”

Matt snorted. “Stick did everything. Like…” He jumped, turned in midair, and snapped two kicks at the bag, left leg over right, and went straight back to punching once he landed.

“Now you’re showing off.”

Yes. “Well, boxers don’t really kick people.” Jab, jab, and he thrust his knee into the bag. “I wish Dad would’ve taught me, but—” Cross, cross. “I get why he didn’t.”

She walked to the second bag and ran one hand over the taught fabric. “If he’d known you’d end up with Stick, I’m sure he would have taught you something.”

That…Matt never thought of that. He hit the bag harder. “Would’ve just made Stick mad to find out I’d already learned something from someone else. He wasn’t big on family anyway.”

“So he _did_ need to get laid.”

“Ha.” Matt stopped for a moment, shaking sweat out of his eyes, catching his breath. “Mom, did you ever have someone…like Stick?”

“Unless you’re asking whether an old man taught me karate, I really don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“I mean, someone like him who…” This was a lot harder to spell out. “Have you ever had someone walk out on you?”

“Everyone has,” she said, “though I think in your case, the circumstances were a bit more extreme.”

“Probably. It’s just…it’s _frustrating_.” Turning back to the bag, he hit it harder. “I believe what Foggy’s been saying.” Jab, cross. “I don’t worship him like I used to.” Jab, cross, uppercut. “I said I was done.” His started punching faster, harder. “But it’s not—going— _away_.”

Jab, cross, jab, cross, jab, cross, cross, cross, cross—

“Matthew.”

He almost jumped out of his skin; she was right next to him, staring up at him from her impossibly short height. “What?” he asked between gasps for breath.

“It might not ever go away.”

Ducking his head, Matt wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. “So I have to deal with this for the rest of my life and he gets to…” It sounded horrible. “He gets to just be dead?”

“You have no idea what he’s experiencing right now,” she said darkly.

“If anything,” he threw out, just to see how she’d react.

She didn’t take the bait. In reality, neither of them was there for a debate about the existence of hell. “I mean that it might feel unfair right now, but you won’t know until you see the bigger plan unfold.”

The tapestry. Right.

“I know it’s not the same,” she went on. “Knowing something in your head as opposed to feeling it to be true.”

“I’m not actually asking for a therapy session right now.”

Her body heat rose as she flushed. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not…” Sighing, he gave up on the bag, reaching for a towel as he sat on the bench. “I know you’re just trying to help.”

“ _Trying_ ,” she emphasized, joining him.

“I mean,” he spluttered. “You are. Helping.” He just wasn’t a very easy person to help. That wasn’t her fault.

“Trying,” she repeated. “You can be honest. I know how to be a nun, not a mother.”

“Well, I haven’t been a son since I was ten.” He meant it to be reassuring somehow (and _why_ did he think saying something like that would be a comfort?) but she seemed to curl into herself beside him. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” she said thinly. “We’re both out of practice. I’m going to need a lot of grace from you, Matthew.”

He searched for something to say that was encouraging but not too emotional. “You’ve probably used up your lifetime allowance of grace dealing with me.”

“As long as you don’t start quoting Job again. You’re banned from reading that book.”

He nudged her with his shoulder. “But I know a good verse.”

She took his towel and dapped at the sweat on his neck. “Do you, now?”

He cleared his throat. “Job chapter twenty-one: bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.”

She slapped him with the towel. “That’s not in the Bible.”

“It’s a powerful verse,” he insisted seriously. “Maybe your training was faulty.”

“I pity the soul who had to teach you the catechism.”

“Yeah.” He stood up and stretched. “I’d rather have had you.”

There was a pause, like she was deciding whether to make that into…something. He hoped she’d let it go. He was trying to practice small statements of affection, especially with her. She used words as well as her hands to heal others; it made sense that she’d respond to the same. But it would be hard to keep saying those kinds of things if she didn’t give him the chance to…pretend he hadn’t said them, basically.

Finally, she answered. “I doubt that. I wouldn’t have let you get away with so much.”

“Or I would’ve learned to be better at getting away with stuff,” he shot back.

“And the world as we know it would be doomed.”

Foggy

Matt wasn’t late to the courthouse, but it was a near thing. Foggy tried not to take it personally, but it was hard when Karen was with him when he finally showed up. “If you two were making out—”

“More like making up,” Karen said, and Matt looked pained.

Foggy blinked. “You had a fight?”

Karen’s lips twitched. “One of us did.” Matt scowled and she put a finger on his cheek. “Stop, you have to keep your face still or you’ll ruin it.” She shot Foggy an exasperated glance. “He got cut on his face and I’ve spent the last half hour trying to cover it up with foundation, listening to him whine about how it feels.”

“It’s uncomfortable,” Matt said stiffly, barely moving his mouth.

Squinting, Foggy could see a thin line, as if drawn by red pen, across his cheek. “Seriously?”

Karen gave Matt a little push closer towards Foggy. “Be thankful. It looked worse before. Go be smart and Matt, don’t be expressive.”

Given that he was obviously glaring behind his sunglasses, it seemed like a wasted command.

He and Foggy were the last ones in the courtroom. They took their places and Foggy kept his own expression carefully neutral as the other two lawyers, Elizabeth Conway’s and Kyle Conway’s, laid out their arguments—again—for why they should be able to depose Ella.

Judge Main didn’t look happy, but he was nodding despite the fact that his wintery eyebrows kept drawing closer together. “I’m inclined to agree. Unless you can convince me otherwise, Counsel?” he asked Matt and Foggy.

Matt took the lead, as discussed. Best to milk Judge Main’s highly unethical crush on him. “Judge, I don’t need to remind you that this is a child abuse case and the child in question is barely seven years old.”

“And I don’t need to remind you, Mr. Murdock, that you and Mr. Nelson are fully capable of setting up a deposition to protect her while not precluding Hayes and Johnston from collecting crucial testimony. Or am I wrong?”

“I don’t think it’s that crucial,” Foggy argued. “Her teacher last year is also prepared to testify.”

Elizabeth Conway’s attorney, Johnston, stepped forward with one defined _clack_ of her high heels. “Cody Moore is a well-intentioned and articulate young man, but he can only tell us what he observed at the school. How Ella received her injuries—” Here she cast an icy look at Hayes, Kyle Conway’s lawyer, “—remains speculative. I’m sure we can all agree that the _crucial_ facts of this case surround how she received the injuries, not what they looked like afterwards.”

“Cody can tell us what Ella told him about how she was injured,” Foggy pointed out.

“Are you planning on calling Ella as a witness?” Judge Main asked. “In which case, I’d think you’d rather depose her now, in lower-stakes environment where she doesn’t have to worry about the drama of a courtroom.”

“Where she won’t be protected by the rules of evidence, you mean.” Besides, if the case settled based on Cody Moore’s testimony, they’d never need to call Ella at trial.

Main’s eyes flicked to Hayes and Johnston and back to Foggy. “I understand your concerns, Mr. Nelson. I suggest you rest under the assurance that if you or Mr. Murdock report any unfair treatment of a seven-year-old on the part of either of these two officers of the court, I will personally make the rest of these proceedings a living hell for them.” He turned back to Hayes and Johnston. “Am I making myself clear?”

“Absolutely clear, Your Honor,” Johnston said sweetly.

Hayes smiled. “Of course, Your Honor.”

Main stood up, black robe billowing. “Then you have my decision. I’ll dismiss Nelson and Murdock’s motion for summary judgment and allow you to continue with discovery. I expect all four of you to conduct yourselves with the utmost respect to this child and to the laws of New York.”

Great. Foggy looked at Matt, expecting to see frustration or even sadness. Instead, he simply saw a grim smile.

Matt

Since she’d discovered that Matt knew “gymnastics,” as she called it, Ella had become convinced that he was hoarding other secrets and that only she could ply them from him. She asked about superpowers, which he dodged as well as he could, and whether he’d been to any magical worlds, and if he had a pet that could talk. That triggered the dog conversation again, and she was disappointed to discover that he still hadn’t gotten a dog.

“When you do, can I go with you, to pick out a good one?”

Between the fact that Matt had no intention of getting a dog and the fact that, if he _were_ to get a dog—shut up, Foggy—he’d have to get permission from Everett’s or, possibly, from her new parents in order to bring her along, Matt struggled to come up with an answer.

“Because you can’t see what it looks like,” she went on seriously.

“I don’t need to see to know what it looks like. It’s a dog.”

“But all dogs are different!” she exclaimed, scandalized. “You have to find the cutest one! It’s okay, Matt. We’ll figure it out.”

He grinned. “Good.”

“If you touch it, can you tell what it looks like?”

“Yeah, mostly. I still don’t know color, so someone would have to tell me if the dog was…brown or not. But I could feel it.”

“ _Wait_ ,” she gasped.

He waited, as instructed, while she wrapped her head around whatever she was thinking about.

“You don’t know what I look like?” she asked.

He raised his eyebrows. “Well…”

“You have to feel me!” She grabbed his hand and pressed it against her face, squishing her left cheek. “Can you feel me?”

“Pretty sure that’s you,” he laughed.

He felt her eyelashes brush his finger as she blinked. “What do I look like?”

 _You’re cute._ Applying barely any pressure, he fanned his fingers over her face. “Foggy’s not kidding—you have really big eyes. And I, uh, like your nose.” He felt himself flush and hoped she couldn’t tell.

“Do you like my hair?” She forcefully moved his hand upwards.

“I’ve felt your hair before, but yeah. It’s nice. Really pretty.”

“It’s _really black_. It’s the blackest thing I’ve ever seen.”

He focused on sensing each individual strand. “It feels beautiful.”

She gave a loud gasp. “I have an idea! Matt, you can help me braid my barbies’ hair!”

He squinted, sure he’d misheard. “What?”

“So you can feel more pretty hair!”

“I don’t actually think like I’m lacking for chances of feeling pretty hair…”

Too late; she tugged on his arm. “Come on!”

That was how he ended up spending an hour or so awkwardly braiding hair. Or trying to. He remembered, in theory, what a braid looked like, but Ella insisted that a real braid involved three strands, not two, which didn’t jive at all with his mental pictures.

At least she was a patient teacher.

Far more patient than his other teacher. “Ella, this has been great, but I’ve gotta go now.”

“Already?” Her voice slipped into a whine.

“Yeah, I’m late for meeting someone. But, uh, thank you for showing me how to…” He gestured at the pile of barbies strewn in front of him.

“Next time, we can do dolls!”

He preferred painting. “Yeah, maybe.” He hugged her quickly and grabbed his cane. “I’m really late. Be good and listen to Miss Alice.”

“I will!” she yelled, which meant she wasn’t listening to Miss Alice’s instructions on inside voices.

Not Matt’s problem. He was thankful he’d been to Everett’s enough times that no one found it truly suspicious if he walked faster than normal, using his cane less to find his way outside, where he decided speed-walking would be faster than finding a covert rooftop path back to his apartment. Once he was out of sight of Everett’s, he removed his glasses and folded up his cane. If he kept his eyes downward, he could pose as a sighted person and move even faster. Well, no one had called him out on it yet.

In less than half an hour, he was dressed in black, mask secured over his eyes, and leaping onto the roof where Stone was waiting for him.

“You’re late.” Stone sniffed. “Did that girl keep you?”

“I’ve told you before. Leave her out of this.”

Stone shrugged exaggeratedly, just like Stick always used to. “I apologize for attempting normal conversation.”

“Nothing’s normal between us.”

Stone sniffed again. “Are you wearing makeup?”

Matt clenched his jaw and didn’t answer.

“Not my concern.” Drawing two knives, Stone paced around him. “You have the right instincts. You have a strong foundation. We can shape you into a warrior yet.”

“I didn’t come here for monologues.”

Stone laughed coldly. “Let’s get started.”

He said it exactly like Stick always did.

Stone lashed out, twisting the knife at the last instant so the blade pointed downwards instead of forwards and what should’ve been easy to block instead cut into Matt’s arm.

“Slow down,” Stone warned. “Think.”

Hard to slow down when Stone was already striking out again. The knife cut the air, faster than Matt had ever heard before. He skipped backwards, got some space.

“Don’t tell me your grand strategy is _retreat_.”

Matt drew a baton, but a knife flew through the air, slicing his hand and lodging in the club.

“Don’t rely on your sticks, Devil. You won’t always have them.”

“I _get_ it,” Matt spat.

“Really? Show me I’m not wasting my time.”

Matt ran forward, using the longer reach of his legs to kick Stone backwards, but another knife flew towards him and Matt couldn’t flinch quite enough, not in time. It drew a bleeding line across his bicep.

“C’mon, Devil,” Stone said. But it didn’t sound like Stone anymore.

Matt went for the joints, striking Stone’s elbow, his wrist, just trying to make him lose his grip on the knife. He didn’t care that Stone’s fist was free to punch Matt in the side of the head, the jaw, the throat. Stone didn’t drop the weapon, but each hit Matt landed was more satisfying than the last.

Then Stone ducked, spun, and pressed the blade to Matt’s throat. “Enough.”

He froze, panting.

Stone kept the knife against Matt’s skin a second longer than he needed to before dropping his arm and stepping back, also breathing heavily. “Stick shouldn’t have given up on you.”

Flexing his wounded arm, Matt ignored this.

“You’re just like him, you know. That little head tilt you do, the way you fight…it’s all him.”

He snapped his head up. “Don’t say that.”

Stone wiped his knife clean on his shirt. “Let me guess, you pretended I was him.”

It was too humiliating to admit.

After a moment of quiet, Stone leaned in closer with a whisper. “Well, that was therapeutic for both of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter than normal bc hey, plot threads!


	2. Silent Memories

Matt

The next morning, Matt changed the bandages on his arm and picked out a darker work shirt, just in case he bled through. At least, he hoped it was dark. Foggy switched some of his braille labels around once as a joke, and it didn’t smell like Foggy had messed around in his apartment recently, but showing up to work in a mismatched suit with a “lurid green” tie (according to Karen) seemed a reasonable basis for indefinite paranoia going forward.

He paused at his bedside table. Stick’s bracelet and the knife Stone had stabbed into his leg were in the drawer. Closing his eyes, Matt inhaled. He could still smell Stone’s scent mingling with the scent of his own blood on the knife. If he concentrated, he could convince himself he also smelled Stick on the bracelet. Faint and fading, but still there. Lingering stubbornly.

Without really thinking about it, he took the bracelet and the knife into the rest of the apartment and set them on the shelf where he kept his medicine and his keys. All the way to work, he replayed his training session with Stone, trying to nail down what he should’ve done differently. It was hard; even in his memories, Stone was a blur of sound and motion.

Next time, he’d ask for a chance to practice with a knife himself. That might give him a better feel for how to combat them. And, frankly, it sounded like fun.

Foggy

Matt was, as usual, late, which meant there was no quiet voice of reason to diffuse the frustration building throughout the office.

“You’re sure her position at Everett’s isn’t jeopardized?” Karen demanded for the _third_ time.

Foggy was about to insist, for the third time, that she stop worrying about that when the door opened. Matt stepped through and paused, propping his cane in the corner. “Should I come back in an hour while you guys calm down?”

“You’re late,” Foggy said.

“I guess that’s a no.” His wandered as if unconsciously to Karen’s side where he put an arm around her. “What’s up?”

Foggy tossed his baseball between his hands, each toss a bit harder than the last. “It’s Ella. Her behavioral problems are getting worse.”

Matt put his other hand on his hip. “Behavioral problems.”

“Their words, not mine.” Foggy cracked his neck. “It’s escalating. Before, it was just, you know, breaking some rules and talking back. Now she’s picking fights.”

“Hard to believe that,” Karen murmured. “She looks so innocent.”

“She’s a kid,” Matt said tightly, like that was supposed to mean something.

“It’s _not_ jeopardizing her place at Everett’s,” Foggy went on, narrowing his eyes at Karen, “but it _is_ jeopardizing the adoption process.”

Matt frowned, disengaging himself from Karen and standing more stiffly off to the side.

“I mean, it’s not like they can move forward until we get a judgment against her parents, but still. Finding adoptive parents for someone as old as Ella is hard enough already.” He thumped the back of his head against the doorframe of his office. “Have you guys thought about the foster system? If she doesn’t get her act together—”

“Get her _act_ together,” Matt repeated with an undefined expression.

“Nothing’s decided yet,” Karen said swiftly. “We’ll talk to her, right? Figure out exactly why she’s so upset, maybe explain the risk of—”

Matt slammed his fist onto the desk, making Karen jump. “No kid should have to manage their behavior for fear of losing their shot at having a _family_.”

Foggy looked at his friend in a new light. Karen put a hand to her mouth.

Matt raised his head with a glare and Foggy braced himself for him to berate them for thinking he and Ella had any of this in common. But although the tension in his neck reached all the way down to his fists, he didn’t protest whatever he could sense in their reactions.

Progress. If you could call it that.

“Okay,” Foggy said slowly. “What if we talk to her about the problems with fighting, and conscientiously avoid saying anything about the adoption? You’re right, Matt, that probably wouldn’t help.”

“It wouldn’t.” Matt was halfway to his own office now, clearly intent on disappearing into the abyss or something.

Foggy and Karen exchanged glances.

“So,” Karen said generally. “We should…go?”

Matt’s door stayed open, so that was something, but he arranged himself at his desk—in the dark, like a creeper—without answering.

Foggy reached for his coat. “We’ll give it a shot.”

For the first time Foggy could think of, Everett’s seemed almost foreboding when they walked up to the gates. Then Foggy told himself to stop being melodramatic. Of the three of them at Nelson, Murdock, and Page, that was definitely not his job.

Burnham escorted them to the common room where Ella was doing homework at a table with some other kids. His normally jovial face looked pinched with worry and Foggy wondered if he worried this much over every child in his care, or if Ella was exceptional. Well, Ella obviously _was_ exceptional, but Foggy also got the sense that Burnham invested in each and every kid.

That sounded incredibly overwhelming and Foggy wished he’d brought him a cup of coffee or something.

Ella jumped up as soon as they entered the room. “Does this mean I get a break?”

From school, he assumed. “Just for a bit,” Foggy said, trying to sound adult.

“I want a break,” one of the other kids started to whine, only to stop when he saw Burnham behind them.

Meanwhile, Ella shuffled closer to Foggy and put her hand in his. “Foggy? Can I talk to you?”

“What do you think we’re doing already, pumpkin?”

But Ella shot a painfully awkward glance at Karen. “It’s about _the secret_.”

“Oh.” It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Ella it was okay because Karen knew. Then again, he wasn’t sure that it would help a seven-year-old understand the importance of the secret if every new grownup she met happened to already know it. He figured it was better to let Matt make that call. “Karen?” he asked politely.

“Oh,” she said, sounding a little startled but playing along. “Okay, sure. I’ll go…look at these pictures.” She walked to the opposite wall, studiously examining the various kids’ artwork.

But this was Karen, a professional snooper. Privately, Foggy doubted she was out of earshot, especially if Ella decided to spontaneously start yelling. But since Karen technically already knew, it didn’t matter, as long as the kids at the table couldn’t hear. He drew Ella a few more steps away, just to be safe. “What’s up?”

She tugged on his sleeve, drawing him downwards. He obliged, crouching in front of her so their heads were almost level. Then she folded her hands together and nibbled on her lip before putting her right hand to her mouth so she could chew on one of her fingers.

Well, he’d never seen her do that before. “Ella, honey? Are you okay?”

“I just…” Wide, uncertain eyes flicked back and forth between Foggy’s. “Matt saved me.”

“Yeah,” Foggy said encouragingly. “Because he loves you very much.”

“But he hurt people.”

Oh. That was where this was going. “Those people wanted to hurt you.”

“Did he give them sad colors?”

“Probably,” he admitted reluctantly. He wished Matt were here, although that was probably a pretty selfish wish. But Foggy had only _just_ figured out how to be okay with having a best friend who was a vigilante. He wasn’t exactly the best person to work through the moral nuances of protective violence.

“But he told me people who give sad colors are bad.”

He was seriously rethinking the decision to exclude Karen from this conversation. He glanced at her for help, but she was still studying the pictures, intentionally ignoring him—as, clearly, she would continue to do until he asked for help out loud. “Yeah, Ella. People who give sad colors to you are bad. But Matt gave sad colors _for_ you. Not that it’s your fault,” he added swiftly, because he couldn’t quite read her expression. “Sometimes sad colors are the only way to stop bad people in time.”

“So if I’m bad, I should get sad colors?”

“ _No_ ,” Foggy said fiercely. “That’s…a totally different kind of bad. And the point of sad colors isn’t to punish people. It’s not because they deserve it.” That was what her dad said, right? That she deserved it? “It’s to stop them from doing something bad _right_ _now_. Does that make sense?” Could she understand the difference between thwarting a crime and dolling out punishment?

Even though, technically, Matt wasn’t above engaging in either of those things. But Foggy couldn’t bring himself to defend Matt’s choice to deal in retribution.

Regardless, he was obviously not making sense to Ella. Her forehead was creased in confusion.

“Like…Ella, if someone walked in here and tried to hurt you, I’d do anything I could to stop them.” He blinked as the truth of that statement hit him. “If that meant giving them sad colors, I’d do it. To keep you safe. But I _wouldn’t_ hunt them down later and give them more sad colors even if I thought they deserved it.” Even though he would want to. Even though Matt probably would.

“So Matt’s…good?” she clarified.

“Yeah. Yeah, Ella. He makes mistakes, and sometimes he gets too angry, but he’s really, really good.”

Relief filled her face. “I think he’s good too!” Her lungs inflated. “I think he’s the _best!_ ”

And there was the shouting. Karen glanced over her shoulder with a smirk.

“Shh, Ella.” Foggy nudged her. “You’re distracting the other kids. C’mon, let’s go talk to Karen.”

But if Ella was this worried about good and bad and hurting people and all the sad colors, this probably wasn’t the time to bring up her problems. Foggy was suddenly and intensely more concerned with making sure that, at this moment, she simply felt loved.

Matt wasn’t at the office when they got back, so Foggy made the executive decision to ambush him at his apartment.

“Foggy,” Karen warned.

“What?” Foggy gathered up his stuff. “Nothing’s wrong. I mean, the Ella stuff sucks, but nothing’s wrong between us. If I only ever invite myself over to have an argument, he’ll start associating my presence in his apartment with pain and suffering. _Pain and suffering_ , Karen. I’d rather be associated with beer and pancakes.”

Karen threw up her hands like she knew better than to argue. “Well, if it’s about _pancakes_ …”

“That’s exactly what this is about.” Hence Foggy stopping briefly at the store on the way to Matt’s apartment.

He let himself in and heard a crash as soon as he opened the door. His stomach flipped as horrible memories invaded and he dropped all the pancake stuff, sprinting inside.

Matt was in his living room, his first aid kid upended next to him, pressing surgical tape over a long defensive wound across his forearm with eyes wide as if he’d been caught stealing cookies.

“Are you okay?” Foggy gasped.

“Fine. You just startled me.” He grabbed a hoodie thrown over the couch and zipped it up.

“Startled you.” Foggy looked at him skeptically, since startling Matt was actually impossible. “I’m looking at you very skeptically, by the way.”

“I was focusing.” First aid supplies were scattered over the rug; he started stuffing them back in the kit.

Foggy joined him on the floor. “I thought you hated surgical tape anyway.”

The face Matt made indicated his position hadn’t changed. It left residue on his skin no matter how high the quality was.

“So…why the tape?”

Matt closed the kit and returned it to its place on the stand next to the divider wall to the hallway. “Will you lecture me if I tell you it’s so my mom doesn’t see the stitches?”

“You can’t anticipate my lectures like that. It takes all the fun out of it.”

With a short laugh, Matt next headed down the hallway. Foggy followed to find him picking up all the food stuff dropped by the front door. “She thinks I’m getting stabbed too much.”

Because in Matt Murdock’s world, getting stabbed like three or four times wasn’t too much. Seven or eight? That was maybe pushing it.

“Pancakes?” Matt guessed, depositing the grocery bags on his counter. “I think some of the eggs broke.”

“Yeah, well, I thought you were dying.”

Matt’s eyes did that thing where they tried harder to lock onto Foggy’s because he was trying to express something earnest. “Thank you.”

“It’s what family’s for.” Foggy started unloading stuff from the bags. “Speaking of. Went to talk to Ella today.”

Matt stiffened ever so slightly. “About the fighting?”

“Yep. Didn’t get around to it, though. She’s more distracted by other fighters. Namely, you.” Foggy dug around the cabinets for some bowls. “Figured you should get a heads up.”

“Ah.” Matt got some milk from the fridge.

Half of Foggy didn’t want to say anything to break the domesticity that had settled into the kitchen. Half of Foggy thought this was an ideal moment to try for a peek at more of Matt’s childhood. “Did you, uh, do that?” he asked, shooting for casual and probably missing, not only because Matt could definitely hear his heartrate speeding up with nervousness. “The fighting thing. As a kid.”

Any nervousness he sensed from Foggy Matt ignored. “Yes. For a while.”

“Why’d you stop?”

He started whisking the batter, a series of sharp, precise flicks of his wrist. “Father Lantom. He introduced me to the idea of channeling anger somewhere more…constructive.” He flashed Foggy a devilish smirk. “Like a court of law, for instance.”

“I always said Ella should be a lawyer.”

“You’ve never said that, Foggy.”

“Well, I’ve always thought it.” He stuck a finger in the batter to Matt’s annoyed look. What? Batter of any kind was delicious. It was in the Constitution. “All the more reason to not let her get deposed, by the way. It would terrify her of the legal world in general.”

Matt cocked his head. “Judge Main was pretty clear on his thoughts about Ella’s deposition.”

“Well, yeah, but he was only our first line of defense. Next we get sanctioned and irritate both Hayes and Johnston, so it’s a double win.”

“Getting sanctioned isn’t a win, Foggy.”

“But keeping Ella out of a deposition is.”

“Well, I’m not sure about that.”

“Look,” Foggy began.

“Can’t,” Matt said cheekily as he turned on the stove and got out a pan.

“ _Look_ ,” Foggy repeated. “Exposing her to—”

Matt cut him off. “She needs to know that her dad was wrong to treat her that way. If we get a verdict and her dad is punished, that’s objective evidence that she doesn’t have to listen to any of his lies anymore.”

“You think she’d listen to a judge?”

“Objective,” he insisted. “That’s different from you or me telling her—that’s the whole world telling her he was wrong.”

Foggy searched Matt’s face. He looked earnest, but not insane. Foggy prepared himself to face Matt’s ire. “Can I ask you an honest question?”

Matt half-smiled. “I mean, if you must.”

“Is this just because this is what you wish happened to Stick?”

The smile vanished. Matt’s mouth opened and closed several times before he managed, “This isn’t about me.”

“I know,” Foggy said hurriedly. “I’m just asking. Maybe you could just answer.”

Matt threw his head back to stare sightlessly at the ceiling. “Come on.”

Foggy folded his arms across his chest and waited. Normally, silence was Matt’s weapon. But Matt was getting better at sharing things, and in this case, Foggy knew he’d be motivated by Ella. If he really thought Ella should go through with this, he’d fight for it.

“Fine,” he said about a minute later. “Let’s say that—that my history with Stick _is_ the only reason. It’s not, but let’s say that it is. That doesn’t mean I’m looking for some sort of vicarious resolution through Ella.”

“That’s not what I was saying!”

“Yes, it is,” he snapped. “But that’s not what’s happening. My history just means I have a different feeling for what will matter more to her. And I believe this will matter.”

“But is it worth it?” Foggy asked quietly.

“She’s stronger than you give her credit for.”

Maybe, but she wasn’t as strong as Matt thought. She was three years younger than Matt had been when he’d met Stick, and maybe Foggy didn’t know exactly what ten-year-old Matt had been like, but from what he knew of his best friend now, he doubted Matt had ever been as open and trusting as Ella.

Then he remembered the wax bracelet he’d found in Matt’s apartment, remembered how Matt had offered it so unsuspectingly to his teacher.

Maybe he should rethink that.

Matt tipped his chin up. “It’s irrelevant anyway. You heard Judge Main.”

Foggy sighed. “Yeah.” He was just trying to figure out how to protect both Ella and Matt at the same time. And hadn’t that been the struggle since the beginning of this case? Because for all that Matt was useful—incredibly so—he was also susceptible, vulnerable, in a way Foggy wasn’t. And sure, so far, his connection to Ella had mostly worked out in their favor.

But it was surely only a matter of time before that balance shifted.

“Listen, Foggy. My childhood was different from yours, beginning way before Stick. And fine, that affects my perception of the world. But that doesn’t make me _wrong_.”

“I never said that’s _why_ you’re wrong,” Foggy grumbled, mildly confused as to why this was the issue Matt was focusing on.

“But you think it,” Matt insisted. “Whatever I say, you can’t just accept it. You’re always imputing my history into my arguments.”

Foggy poured batter into the pan, since Matt had apparently forgotten about it. “That’s not fair.”

“I know. It’s not.”

“I mean, you can’t just assume I’m doing that.” Why were they suddenly arguing about…what, Foggy’s perspective on Matt’s perspective of _life_? This was way more philosophy than Foggy ever signed up for. He’d come here with the specific intention of avoiding any arguments.

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Just tell me honestly. When I share ideas about Ella, don’t you feel sorry for me?”

Foggy wished Matt weren’t a living lie detector. This was one of those lies you were supposed to tell people—for their own sake. But Matt didn’t get that luxury. “Yeah, Matt. And I know you don’t want that. But I can’t stop myself.”

“I don’t care if you feel sorry for me,” he said, and Foggy resisted the temptation to look for a fire extinguisher in case his pants ignited. “I care that you discount my opinion because of your pity. If I’m telling you what I think, and why I think it, you don’t get to write it off just because you know my background.”

The impulse was to deny it, not just in self-defense but to protect their friendship—Matt’s view of Foggy’s view of him. “I’m sorry, man. If it helps, I don’t sit down and _decide_ to…to write you off. I’d _never_ do that.”

“I believe you,” Matt said in that soft voice he slipped into whenever he was listening to something he shouldn’t be able to hear.

Foggy’s heartbeat, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is definitely longer than it was supposed to be. But after the news about season 4, I kind of needed to keep writing? We're gonna get through this, guys! For now, I for one am trying to focus on appreciating how beautiful the ending of Season 3 is. Our trio is together and happy and honest and they WON.
> 
> And set the stage for many stories to come, even if they must come through a different medium.
> 
> ALSO. Shout-out to SoulfireInc (<3 <3 <3) for relentlessly pointing out the problem of "people who give sad colors are bad" + "Matt *gives sad colors* Murdock" and creating a new plot thread thanx for that this thing is way longer now and I hope you're pleased with yourself.


	3. Your Lips Were Poisoned

Karen

“I know it’s not much in the way of a date,” Matt was apologizing as he let her into his apartment that night. “I could…get out some candles?”

She was pretty sure he didn’t actually have candles. He’d probably smell the smoke for weeks. Catching his hand, she tugged him back. “This is fine.”

“Foggy wanted me to go over the questions for Cody Moore’s deposition,” Matt explained, still apologetic. “I thought you could help? I know it’s not really romantic, but—mmm.” He shut up when she kissed him.

“I spend most of my days in an office with exactly two other people,” she whispered slowly. “Any opportunity to be with one of them without the other around counts as a date.”

His lips twitched. “Didn’t realize you spent so much time alone with Foggy.”

Rolling her eyes, she led him into the main apartment. “Just for that comment, you owe me dinner.”

“I was gonna make you something anyway,” he protested.

“Sure, but I had been prepared to let you do whatever you want. Now I’m putting my foot down about the cilantro. Absolutely no cilantro.”

He looked like he was about to argue, then seemed to think better of it, merely rolling his eyes before heading into the kitchen and gathering ingredients.

For a moment, she was content just to watch him. She’d seen him navigate the world without pretense enough times to no longer be impressed when he avoided bumping into corners. Still, there was something about how he moved in his own kitchen—his territory, if you will—that was an entirely other level of graceful.

Eventually, she leaned against the divider wall, stopped next to the stand where he kept his medicine. There were two things sitting on top, in the most accessible location: a small circle of ancient wax paper, and a knife she didn’t recognize.

She touched the tip of the blade. “Matt?”

“Yeah?” He was mixing together some kind of pasta. “Hang on a sec. I’m almost done.”

She ran her finger up the blade, felt the slight tug at her skin, took it with her to sit on the couch.

Matt dished up the pasta on two plates and got halfway into the living room before he seemed to notice what she was holding. Halting, he balanced the plates and sort of jerked his chin at her. “What’re you doing with that?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

His lips thinned. “Souvenir.”

“From?”

“The guy who stabbed me.”

“Matt,” she said exasperatedly.

Sitting on the couch beside her, he offered her a plate. The one he kept for himself bore a sprig of cilantro. “How’s your dad?”

“ _Matt_.”

“What?” He turned his whole face towards her, eyebrows raised. “I honestly don’t know what you’re getting at, Karen. It’s a nice knife. Well-balanced.”

Fine. She could spell it out. But gently. She set the plate on the couch—to his mild noise of protest; he hated any risk of spillage on his furniture, claimed he’d smell it forever—and went to the closet, opened the chest, and retrieved the list. Sitting back down, she opened his hand so he could hold it.

He cocked his head. “The Bad Decision Spectrum.”

She nodded, trusting he’d sense it, and moved his hand to the final category, the list of things he wasn’t allowed to do at all. For any reason. “I know for a fact that the first and third decisions have already been an issue.”

Murder. Pulling away from the people who cared about him. He didn’t refute her statement.

“So, um…”

“You want to know about the second.” He gave a small, fake laugh. “Well, again, I can’t really see it. It was…suicide, I think?”

Hearing him say the word should not be so disturbing. And yet.

“That’s not what this knife is for. I swear, I just picked it up from Stone. And it really is nice. Feel it, Karen.” He put the paper away, reached for the knife.

“Matt.”

He balanced it on one finger. “What?”

“Talk to me,” she said quietly.

He spun the knife and kept spinning it, and it was almost comical, watching the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen fiddle nervously with a knife. “All right. Suicide. It’s…yeah, it’s been an issue. Before.”

“Recently?”

He shrugged at the word and she wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t know how to apply it or thought it didn’t matter. “When I was recovering. After Midland Circle.”

“Can you tell me about that?”

He shrugged again. “I didn’t think I had anything to live for.”

“Not to sound self-absorbed, but…” She took his free hand and put it on her heart.

He laughed a little. “I know. I was deluding myself about a lot of things at the time.”

“And…since?”

Twining his fingers with hers, he brought their joined hands to his mouth where he could press his lips to her skin. “It’s better now. With you.”

She flicked his nose. “Stop flirting.”

“All right, sorry.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not just you. Also Foggy. My mom. Even having actual clients to think about…it all helps.”

“Ella?” she asked knowingly.

The faintest blush spread over his cheeks. “Yeah. I’d rather stick around for her.”

“Good.” She examined his face, half in the interest of making sure he wasn’t lying and half simply because she wanted to drink in everything about him. “Good.”

“Are you satisfied now?”

She wanted to be. Desperately. But all those motivations were so external, so fragile. “What if any of that changes? If…if I’m not enough, or…”

He looked dismayed. “Karen, no. It’s not about whether you’re enough. You are. It’s just…I might not always see that, and that’s on me.”

She immediately wanted to point out the ridiculousness of his double standard—he didn’t need to personally see her value in order to know, in his head and heart, that she possessed it, yet he needed piles of evidence to believe in any of his own goodness.

But with Matt, as with most people, she was learning to pick her battles.

“I was the problem, not you,” he insisted, spinning the knife faster. “I had none of my abilities. I couldn’t help people the way I used to, and without that…it really felt like I had nothing left.”

“Maybe you couldn’t break someone’s wrist or backflip off a balcony, but you never stopped being a brilliant lawyer.”

He chuckled. “You sound like my mom. She insisted I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself in light of all the gifts God’s given me.”

“Mmm. Which gifts?”

“Law degree.” His lips quirked. “Apparently, I’m handsome.”

“I agree. God did a good job on you. But I’m thinking of other things.”

“Yeah?” The smile broadened. He was obviously expecting compliments about his sexual prowess or something.

Surprise, surprise, Mr. Murdock. “Your devotion to other people, the way you don’t let any small suffering go unnoticed.”

He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Karen, don’t…”

“And you set your own happiness aside to ensure everyone else’s.” He looked about to protest, so she put a finger over his mouth. “You’re kind, Matt. You’re just…really kind.”

“I’m really not.”

“Trust me, all right? None of that comes from your mentor or anyone else. It’s _you_. And if you have any of those traits I just listed, even to the smallest extent, aren’t you worth keeping around?”

Resting his elbows on his knees, he stared blankly at the floor. “I need to be better. For everyone, but also for you."

She bit back the impulse to argue. “Why?”

The look he gave her was incredulous. “Because you’re…you’re amazing, Karen. I need to be the man you deserve.”

“That,” she said, “is the sweetest and stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Matt, you already _are_.”

He started playing with her hair, which was unfairly distracting. “But don’t you wish,” he said softly, “I didn’t have so much baggage?”

“You don’t exactly have a monopoly on baggage,” she pointed out. “And I’m glaring at you really hard right now.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean to discount what you’ve been through.” He sighed. “But those things have all happened _to_ you, and as much as it makes me furious that it happened at all, it’s different. You were the victim, not the—”

“Okay, no, I can’t do this.” She got up and walked to the hallway.

“Karen?” He followed her like a nervous puppy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Whipping around, she folded her arms tightly across her chest. “I’m not mad at you, Matt,” she said, which was maybe a lie, but she was _trying_ not to be mad at him, which should count for something. “I just can’t have this conversation with you if you’re going to put me on a pedestal.”

“I’m not—” He stopped and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I am doing that.” He shot a rueful look over her shoulder at the blank wall behind her. “Sorry.”

“We all make mistakes.” Moving closer, she slipped her arms around his waist and tuck her head under his chin. “Maybe try forgiving yourself for yours.”

“It doesn’t really work that way.” He pulled back, drawing her into the living room again. “How’s your dad?”

She narrowed his eyes at him behind his back because he wasn’t even trying to be subtle about changing the topic. It was weird, though: his very lack of subtlety reflected his trust in her, his trust that she wouldn’t push things, that she’d let him tap out when he needed to. At least, that was how she chose to interpret it.

Of course, she was definitely returning to this subject at some point.

She also wasn’t thrilled about talking about her dad, but he was putting in such an effort to be honest with her. The least she could do was return the favor. “I’ve decided to go to Vermont.”

He sat on the arm of the couch. “Your dad’s not getting better?”

“I guess not. And he doesn’t really have anyone out there to take care of him. I mean, he has friends, but they’re not… _invested_ , I guess.”

“And you are?”

She pursed her lips. “That’s a funny question. Whatever he’s done, he’s still my dad. He’s still did a lot for me over the years. And…I don’t know, I think I feel bad for him? He made so many stupid decisions and sometimes I forget that…um, that he lost as much as I did.”

“So…what, you’re going to comfort him?”

She sighed. “You think I’m being stupid.”

“No.” His hand rested over hers. “I think you’re being kind. But I know people like that can…get inside your head. Promise me you won’t let him, all right?”

“I know better than to trust him again.”

“Good.” He squeezed her hand. “I mean, I’m sorry for that. And, you know, Karen, please…”

“Be careful?” she finished for him.

He nodded, and somehow she knew he wasn’t referring to her physical wellbeing at all.

Matt

“You’ve been with your girlfriend,” Stone greeted him.

“Don’t talk about her.” Matt unwrapped the wrist braces he used as Daredevil. They also offered some protection from knives, which was why he didn’t use them with Stone.

“Does she get to talk about me? Or does she still not know?”

“I’ll tell her.”

Stone snorted. “Sure you will. Don’t wait too long. A woman like that isn’t likely to give you second chances.”

She’d already given him far more chances than he deserved. It was reassuring, though: a reminder that for all Stone knew about Matt, he knew absolutely nothing about Karen. “I want to try using knives today,” Matt announced. “Figured it’ll help me anticipate the weapon.”

“Did you figure,” Stone murmured, sounding slightly impressed. Or maybe Matt was just hopeful. “Fortunately for you, I happen to have spares.” He dropped to one knee beside his bag, unzipped it, and tossed a knife at Matt.

He caught it just a moment too late in its spin and a sliver of blade cut into his skin.

Stone gave an exaggerated sniff. “Well done.”

Matt shook the blood onto the rooftop and gave an experimental swing of the knife. It felt simultaneously wrong and right in his hand.

Stone took a lazy step closer. “Let’s see it.”

Matt leapt forward, but he didn’t strike with the knife first. He led with a kick, followed by a punch, only then lashing out with the blade, hoping to catch Stone off guard.

He didn’t—Stone blocked everything Matt threw at him. Still, he gave Matt a brief nod. “You’re finally using your head.” He stepped in, blade thrusting through the air, and Matt stepped back with the opposite foot. “What’s your dominant hand—the left? Don’t try to mirror my attack. Cut in, catch me off guard.”

Matt accepted the compliment and tried to work the advice into his strategy without focusing on the fact that Stone knew he was left-handed, despite the fact that Matt always took an ambidextrous approach to combat.

And it was easier now, not trying to mirror Stone but letting his left side lead, using all the added range of the knife to force Stone backwards. The blade never touched Stone—although Stone’s weapon ripped through Matt’s clothes and skin in several places—but as the sun began to rise, spreading its warmth over the city, Matt’s attacks had become so aggressive that Stone switched to prioritizing defense.

“Enough,” Stone finally ordered through gasps for breath.

Matt immediately came to a halt, lowering the knife in his hand. “Tired?”

“Unlike you, my day job doesn’t involve sitting at a desk for hours straight.”

Stick would’ve scorned at that excuse. Matt turned to his gym bag, digging around for bandages. “Yeah? You have a day job?”

Stone, of course, didn’t elaborate. “As for your job, how’s the little one? Bella?”

“Ella,” Matt corrected before he could think better of it.

“My mistake.” Stone came up behind Matt, reached past him for a bandage, and put his hand on Matt’s lower back where the knife had slashed.

Twisting, Matt grabbed Stone’s lapels. “Don’t touch me.”

“I’m helping. You can’t exactly reach the cut on your back. Or have you changed your mind about telling your friends about what I’m teaching you?”

Matt gave Stone a small push. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t want you getting grounded.”

“That might be the first entirely honest thing you’ve said to me.” Matt rolled back his sleeve to press a bandage to his bleeding forearm.

“Think so?”

“You can’t risk losing me because you know we share something.” He dropped his arm, cocked his head, took a step closer to Stone. “And when is the last time you had anything in common with another human being?”

For just an instant, Stone became completely still. Then he snatched up his own bag. “Same time tomorrow night?”

Matt smirked and hoped Stone could see it. Stone could see, right? He’d never asked. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Stone made a scoffing sound and jumped off the edge of the roof. Matt tracked his progress from building to building, roof to roof, until Stone escaped his senses.

_Cut ’em loose for their sake. Break their hearts if you have to._

How many times had Stone followed that advice?

_I’m not gonna do that._

Did he have anyone left?

_Then they will suffer._

Matt packed up his stuff.

_And you will die._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally caved and used the word "chuckled" and it won't stop staring at me, daring me to remove it.


	4. I Watched You

Foggy

Cody Moore looked spiffier than Foggy had ever seen him in a dark blue suit and tie. His curly black hair wasn’t tamed per se, but it didn’t look like he’d been electrocuted. Nor did he smell like a freshman dorm, which was a big plus.

“Thank you again for agreeing to this,” Foggy said, ushering him into the conference room at Nelson, Murdock, and Page.

“I’m just glad to be helping.” Cody crossed his arms. “I still feel like I should’ve done more.”

“You reported it,” Foggy reassured him. “It’s not your fault the school didn’t pursue it.”

Cody didn’t look convinced.

“There’s plenty of blame to go around with this case,” Matt said softly. “Don’t take more than your share.”

Well, Foggy would’ve suggested not taking _any_ , but Cody cast an appreciative glance at Matt nonetheless.

“Here’s the drill,” Foggy said as they all took their seats. “In about half an hour, two sharky sharks are gonna come through that door—”

“Sharks?”

“The sharkiest,” Foggy clarified.

“Lawyers,” Matt actually clarified.

“And we’re gonna do some procedural stuff that’s really boring and everyone hates, and then Matt and I will ask you some questions. I’ll be doing most of the questioning, actually, since we already set Matt loose on Kyle Conway and we’re also saving him for Ella.”

Matt thought it was because of his ability to relate to Ella. Which it was, kind of like when they used Matt on Frank Castle—except this time it would actually work. Foggy also thought (very, very privately) that maybe Hayes and Johnston would tone it down if faced with both Ella’s innocent face and Matt’s blindness.

“So I’ll ask questions,” he went on, “and you’ll answer as honestly and completely as possible. Then both the sharks will get to ask questions. I’ll be here to object if they push things too far, but the problem with depositions is that they actually get a lot of leeway. So I can’t promise all the questions will be…nice.”

Cody looked troubled. “Nice?”

Matt and Foggy had already met with Cody (twice) to go over potential points of vulnerability in his history, particularly relating to his history with the school and his relationship with Ella. “You should be prepared for anything they throw at you,” Foggy assured him. “But if something comes up that you don’t have an answer for, don’t answer right away. Give yourself about five seconds to think about the best answer.”

“That also gives us time to object,” Matt added. “Again, since this is a deposition and not a trial, we probably won’t be able to. But give us the chance before you start talking.”

Cody was nodding, but he was also biting his lip.

“Deep breaths,” Matt said quietly. “It’ll be fine.”

“I’m not nervous.”

Well, Foggy couldn’t read heartbeats, but that seemed debatable. Foggy got him some water which he did not drink. Instead, Cody sat stiffly while the court reporter and videographer filed in, followed by Hayes and Johnston. Introductions were exchanged and Foggy haggled with Hayes and Johnston over stipulations while Matt sat next to Cody like an overgrown guard dog.

When everyone was settled, Foggy started in. “Please state your name and spell the last for the record.”

“Cody Moore. M-O-O-R-E.”

“What is your place of employment?”

“Little Hands Elementary.”

“And how long have you been employed there?”

“About two years.”

“What does your employment involve?”

“I teach math, science, social studies, and language arts. I prepare lessons, oversee classroom activities, grade assignments. I also volunteer to supervise the kids—I mean, the students—at recess.”

“Tell us about your relationship with Ella.”

The smile across his face seemed genuine despite the fact that he was sitting taught as a bowstring. “She’s a great kid. I had her last year. She’s a good student, although she gets distracted easily and she missed class more than usual. I hung out with her a lot during recess.”

“Did you ever worry about her while she was under your care?”

Cody narrowed his eyes at Hayes and Johnston. “Yeah. A lot.”

From there, Foggy pushed for all the details Cody had given them before, and then some. Details about bruises and cuts and a broken arm, details about Ella being late to school or not picked up on time or missing class entirely, or showing up hungry or dirty or tired and in yesterday’s clothes.

The thing was, she was blooming under the love shown to her at Everett’s. Hearing her childhood spelled out anew, Foggy shot a glance at Hayes and Johnston. Their clients were responsible for this. And Johnston’s lips were pressed into a thin line, so that was something, but Hayes was as impassive as ever even as she met Foggy’s gaze.

“Your witness,” he finally said, keeping his voice light and calm for Cody’s sake. He wanted to growl.

“Wonderful.” Hayes opened a manila folder on the table and shuffled some papers. The initial questions were innocuous enough and Cody—oh, no, Cody was relaxing. This wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, maybe. Foggy sat stiffly upright, trying to warn him against a false sense of security. Once they made eye contact, Cody snapped back to attention.

“Ella’s had a couple of incidents at school, hasn’t she?” Hayes asked.

Cody waited a moment, just like he was supposed to. “Every kid has.”

“I’m referring to a specific incident, one that occurred on September twelfth of last year.”

Cody looked nervously at Matt and Foggy. “I don’t remember.”

“Possibly it didn’t seem to you like a big deal at the time.” She withdrew a piece of paper from her folder. “I’d like the record to note that I am now showing the witness the document marked as Exhibit Fourteen.” She slid the paper across the table. “Do you recognize this, Mr. Moore?”

“It’s an incident report.”

“Whose signature is at the bottom?”

“Mine.”

Foggy tried to crane his neck without looking like he was craning his neck. During the initial document exchange, Hayes had revealed her intent to use a stack of incident reports from Ella’s time at school to support her case, but though Foggy, Matt, and Karen had poured over the documents, they hadn’t felt confident that they knew what her play actually was.

Matt just looked irritated and Foggy wasn’t sure whether it was because he didn’t know what Hayes was getting at or merely because he couldn’t see the report.

“Mr. Moore, walk us through the events of this incident.”

“Another kid was hurt on the playground. Started bleeding real bad. But the kid was fine. Ella was the one who freaked—um, who got upset.”

“Why was she so upset?”

“She was scared of the blood. She kept saying the kid was going to die.”

“Did that seem a little dramatic to you?”

“Lots of kids are scared of blood.”

“She likes to create fantasy stories, doesn’t she?”

“Well, yeah.” Cody looked confused.

“Thank you.” Hayes switched to a new line of questioning. “And when you were with the kids at recess, I understand you liked to sit with Ella?”

“That’s when she told me the stories.

“Were the two of you supervised, Mr. Moore?”

His eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“You and the little girl. Was there ever an instance where you were alone together?”

“No,” Cody said quickly. Too quickly. “That’s against school policy.”

Foggy wished he could mouth the words _slow down_. Cody was upset, defensive. If he said something without thinking….

“Never a single moment, hmm?” Hayes was on the edge of her seat. “Then how do you explain a statement given by one Miss Robin Gardner that she once walked in on the two of you alone in the classroom?”

“Objection,” Foggy snapped. “Hearsay.”

Hayes cast him a scornful look. “As Mr. Murdock so emphatically pointed out during Kyle Conway’s deposition, hearsay is not a valid objection in this meeting.”

“My bad,” Foggy said unapologetically, glaring at Cody. _Slow down. Think before you speak._

Hayes pinned Cody down with her own glare. “Well, Mr. Moore? How do you answer Miss Gardner’s statement?”

Cody laughed uneasily. “Oh, that was nothing. Her mom was late picking her up, so she stayed with me.”

“Against company policy?”

“I didn’t think she’d be that late.”

“Really? How long were you alone together?”

Cody paled. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Hayes repeated softly. “Or do you just not want to admit it? Would it shock you to learn that Miss Gardner believes you were alone together for nearly an hour?”

Cody glanced at Foggy as if trying to figure out how to answer. “Uh…yes? Besides, the door was open. And the windows. We weren’t hiding.”

“And yet it was after school hours. Did _you_ see anyone in the hall while you were with Ella?”

“Not that I remember.”

“A lot can happen in an hour, Mr. Moore. What happened between you and Ella when no one was watching?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Cody snarled. “She told me stories. That’s it. That’s all that happened.”

“I hope you’re telling the truth, Mr. Moore. I really do.” Hayes sat back and settled her stare on Foggy. “I’ve no further questions for the witness.”

Cody’s face was ashen.

Foggy stood up. “Let’s take a break, shall we?”

About three hours later, the deposition wrapped up. Johnston had gotten her turn in, but she wasn’t terribly interested in Cody’s testimony. She couldn’t really spin it to make her client, Elizabeth Conway, look less negligent. She did try to reinforce a couple of the points Foggy had made about Kyle’s behavior, but she didn’t linger.

Which was a good thing, because Cody looked like he was on the verge of some kind of collapse. As soon as everyone cleared out, he dropped his head into his hands. “That was horrible. How much did I ruin?”

“No, you did good,” Matt argued, standing next to him. “That was really good.”

Cody lifted his head and stared at Foggy like Matt was insane.

“They’re trying to attack your credibility and they’re trying to destabilize you, but all they have are implications and speculation unless they call Robin Gardner. If they do, we can cross-examine her and pick her story apart. It’ll be fine.”

Cody let out a shaky breath. “You’re sure?”

Matt flashed a dark smile. “Positive. Hayes is trying to scare you. Don’t let her.”

“Posturing,” Foggy assured him. “That’s all it is. You got a lot of good information about both her parents on record, which is especially important concerning the mother. Ella might be able to explain how her dad hurt her well enough for a jury to understand, but how’s a seven-year-old supposed to be able to explain what parental negligence is? Not like she knows any different and she thinks missing school is _fun_.”

“It’s crucial testimony,” Matt insisted.

Cody pushed back from the table. “Okay. I’ll trust you on that. I think…I think I’m gonna go home now? Or go get a drink. A lot of drinks.”

Foggy handed him his coat. “Not a bad idea.”

“Want to come?”

Foggy shook his head. “Trust us, you don’t want us anywhere near you until we’ve gotten all our analysis out of our system. Matt’s not gonna shut up about the deposition until tomorrow after lunch.”

Matt held the door open for Cody. “After lunch? That’s oddly specific.”

“You’re oddly predictable, my friend.” He shook Cody’s hand. “Thank you again. Seriously. This will really make a difference for Ella.”

Cody was still a little pale, but there was a firmness in his eyes. “That’s all I want.”

The second the door shut, Foggy let his confident veneer drop and turned on Matt. “Nope, nope. That was horrible.”

“It wasn’t horrible, Foggy. We got the evidence we needed—you laid it out yourself.”

“I’m not talking about the _evidence_ , Matt, I’m talking about the sheer cruelty of it. We’re not letting Ella go through that. I can’t. That was horrible.”

“You can’t?” Matt asked mildly. “Or she can’t?”

“Either. Both. Wait.” Foggy narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying the thought of putting her in front of Hayes and Johnston doesn’t simultaneously terrify and preemptively infuriate you?”

“It makes me angry, yeah. But—”

“What if Hayes starts asking Ella about whatever time she’s spent alone with Cody? What if she starts asking whether Ella’s ever spent time alone with either of us?”

Matt’s expression darkened.

“Which Ella has, by the way,” Foggy added in a fierce whisper. “With _you_. In a very scary place. You think she’ll be able to keep that secret?”

“I’ll talk to her beforehand. Make sure she understands what to say.”

“What about whether she _understands_ what Hayes is asking about, Matt? What if Hayes convinces her she can’t trust us or something?”

“That won’t happen.”

“Yeah, well.” Foggy snatched up his own jacket. “I wish I had your optimism.”

“She’s a child witness, Fogs. If Hayes pushes her like that, we can just stop the whole thing and you know Main would let us get away with it.”

That…that kind of made Foggy feel worse. Like they should’ve tried harder to protect Cody. But he knew they couldn’t afford to use up their social capital on Cody when they’d need it to shield Ella. And he was willing to bet Cody would agree. “Yeah,” he said heavily. “You’re right.”

Matt put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay focused, buddy. This is almost over.”

Stone

He slipped in through the window, crossing soundlessly over the sill. Her apartment was large and spacious, decorated simply. Judging by the bookcase, she clearly loved books. He sniffed. She also loved chocolate. Stone smelled the Devil’s blood on her couch. She must love him too, enough to heal him no matter how much trouble he brought upon himself.

Stone made his way into the kitchen. More chocolate, coffee that smelled too bitter, takeout and salads in the fridge, spare keys hanging by the pantry. Long knives in the drawer.

He moved into the bedroom next. Clothes flung over the back of a chair. Pajamas on the bed, still slightly warmed from when she’d worn them. The bed, also one degree or so warmer, was unmade, piled high with an excessive amount of pillows.

Stick would have scorned the domesticity.

Except for the magazine of bullets in the drawer of her bedside table. Except for the pills in her medicine cabinet in the bathroom (but those hadn’t been touched recently).

On balance, however, the place was disturbingly normal. She could’ve been anyone. She was vulnerable, regardless of the bullets. The entire apartment smelled of the Devil, but Stone was here, able to do whatever he pleased, and the Devil wasn’t stopping him.

Oh, and she was returning! Karen Page key slid into the lock of the front door. Stone brushed his hand against her pillow before going to her bedroom window, escaping outside and closing it before pulling himself up onto the roof.

There he stayed, listening. She deposited her bags by the door, removed her shoes, fetched herself some water, set up her laptop, and started typing. So soft and vulnerable, but relaxed.

Ignorance did seem like bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This last scene inspired by a lovely anonymous reader who shared this lovely response to Stone mentioning Karen in the last story: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c4167643-dc0f-41e2-9ba4-0e99bacc12ae


	5. I Release Me from My Past

Foggy

Foggy hated Fogwell’s. He wasn’t sure why. Well, there was the obvious: it was a gym. There was also the slightly less obvious and much more embarrassing fact that Fogwell’s kind of represented Matt’s superior physique. No, not superior. Foggy looked great. But…well, if they ever found themselves in a position where they had to lift some heavy thing off a person in distress, or chasing down a bad guy, Matt would be far more useful than Foggy.

Yeah, that was it.

Then there was the much more insidious side of things. Foggy had known about Fogwell’s long before he learned the truth about Daredevil. And Foggy wasn’t really angry about Daredevil or the years Matt had spent pretending he didn’t have supersenses. Not really, not anymore. But still, Fogwell’s was just a reminder that all of that had been right under Foggy’s nose and he hadn’t suspected a thing.

So yeah. Foggy wasn’t a fan.

He walked in regardless, zeroed in on where Matt was going to town on a punching bag. Like…seriously going to town. “Anger issues?” Foggy asked.

Matt stepped back, bounced a bit on his toes, sweat dripping into his sightless eyes. “You think?”

“That’s not a no.”

“It’s not.” He stepped forward into another punch.

“Wanna try using your words and not your fists?”

Matt tossed a dangerous look in Foggy’s direction. “It makes more sense with the bag.”

And that didn’t make sense at all. “Maybe you should take a break anyway and, you know, shower. Since we’re due at Everett’s in less than an hour.” Burnham had asked that they be the ones to explain to Ella about her upcoming deposition, since they could do a better job communicating the importance of the situation. Probably.

Matt drove his fist deep into the bag once, twice, three times, and backed up again, shaking out his arm.

“You’re looking a little stormy, buddy. Or, dare I say it, _tempestuous_.”

He unwrapped his wrist braces. “Yeah, well, better I get it out here than in front of Ella.”

“Get what out?” Foggy asked casually, hoping to pry enough information from him to determine if Matt should actually be around Ella at all today.

“Give me a sec.” Matt took his bag and disappeared into the showers and Foggy resigned himself on not getting an answer to that particular question. Besides, he didn’t want another lecture on the whole, confusing Matt-is-unhappy-about-Foggy’s-perspective-of-Matt’s-perspective thing. (It wasn’t confusing. Foggy just didn’t like being called out like that.) So he let it go.

Ella bolted out of Everett’s as soon as she saw them, hurtling straight at Foggy. He waited until the last possible second to sidestep. She couldn’t course-correct in time and crashed into the gate several feet behind him with a small, “Ow.”

Matt gaped at him. “What was that for?”

Foggy moved backwards quickly, just in case Matt decided to avenge Ella. “I’m trying to teach her that charging at people isn’t polite. And she’s okay.”

“I’m okay!” Ella shouted from the wall. She wandered back over, giggling and holding her shoulder.

Matt tapped his cane on the ground. “Foggy. She could’ve been seriously hurt.”

“At the speed she was going? _I_ would’ve been seriously hurt.”

“You have padding. She’s small.”

Foggy and Ella made the same undignified noise of offense. Then Ella gave a dramatic gasp. “Matt, _you’re_ hurt. You’re _bleeding_.”

“I am?” He sniffed, which was weird. “Where?”

Sure enough, a small line of blue was tinting purplish on his abdomen. Foggy felt selfish relief that at least Matt’s attention had been diverted. “You’re bleeding through your shirt, buddy.” He reached for tissues in his satchel. Always handy to have tissues; never knew when someone talking to a lawyer might break down in tears. He wadded some up and pressed it to the mottled color and was about to make some joke when he saw Ella’s face.

Her mouth was open, eyes wide as she stared. And, for once, she was silent.

“Ella,” Matt said quickly, “take a breath. I’m fine.”

She obeyed, sucking in oxygen. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. They said it’s okay.”

Foggy frowned. “Who said what?”

“They said blood’s okay.” She closed her eyes, then opened them and lifted her chin, clearly trying very hard to be a grownup. “Matt, you should be more careful.”

At the look on Matt’s face, Foggy had to fight laughter. Then he figured, why deny himself? Except that once he started laughing, Ella started glaring at him.

“I’m _serious_ , Foggy.”

“Oh, I know, Ella, believe me. The only reason I’m laughing is because it’s nice that someone else is telling him that.”

“Lots of people tell me that,” Matt objected.

Foggy squeezed Ella’s shoulder. “Yeah, but maybe you’ll actually listen to this one.”

With an annoyed huff, Matt stole the tissue from Foggy and stuffed it in his pocket before buttoning his jacket, obscuring the injury. “Can we talk, Ella?”

“I need to tell Mr. Burnham you’re here! Are you coming?”

“Actually,” Matt said, “can you find us out here once you’ve told Mr. Burnham?”

“I’ll be right back!” Aaaand she was off.

Foggy took the opportunity to lean into Matt. “She’s still scared of blood,” he murmured. “I guess she didn’t grow out of it.”

Matt’s fingers tapped a rhythm on the handle of his cane. “Upside is, that’s more evidence that Ella isn’t a liar. She really was that scared about the kid on the playground and she really is that scared by her dad.”

“Too bad we can’t let a jury see that.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just bleed at trial. I’ll show her the blood, she’ll pass out, and we’ll win the case.”

Foggy tried to convey the depth of his displeasure with his voice. “Yeah, Matt. This is why no one lets you make plans.”

He didn’t dispute that, though that was possibly because he could hear Ella approaching, given that she burst out of Everett’s a moment later.

“Mr. Burnham’s glad you’re here!” she yelled. Because she was outside and allowed to.

Matt grinned. “Good. So, I was thinking we could just talk out here?” As if to demonstrate, he sat down on the grass, legs crossed, and patted the spot next to him.

Foggy wasn’t thrilled at the idea of sitting in the grass in his suit and it seemed unorthodox to have such an important conversation outside. But Ella looked delighted, flopping down beside Matt and plucking at individual blades of grass, so Foggy decided to trust Matt’s instincts.

“Has Mr. Burnham told you about what you’ll be doing in a couple of days?” Matt asked.

“He said it was something with you, but he didn’t sound very happy.”

“Yeah. It might not be a lot of fun, but it’s really important.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “Do you know what my job is? And Foggy’s?”

“You’re lawyers,” she answered, and it was somehow jarring to hear a seven-year-old name their profession so casually. “Mr. Burnham and Miss Alice say you help people. And you’re helping me!”

Matt nodded encouragingly. “How do we help you?”

“You’re my friends!” She tied the grass into knots. “Oh, but I guess that’s not your job? You, um…you made sure I got to come here instead of staying with Mommy.”

Foggy forced a smile, because putting it that way was kind of ambiguous. “We’re just trying to make sure you end up in a place where people love you.”

“Like the adoption!”

Foggy had a lot of questions about what she actually knew and thought about that, but this wasn’t the time. “Right. So even though you’re at Everett’s right now, there are still a lot of decision to be made. Like whether you should keep living here or go back with your mom—”

She kind of frowned.

“—or your dad, or whether—”

She shook her head violently. “Don’t want to be with my dad.”

“We know,” Mat assured her. “And we’re trying to make sure he stays away from you. But we don’t get to make the final decision. Someone else does. A judge. But that judge doesn’t know your story like Foggy and I do and he _definitely_ doesn’t know your story like you do. So that thing Mr. Burnham is talking about? It’s a chance for you to tell your story.”

She brightened a little.

“Not a made-up story,” Matt said quickly. “The real one about what your life has been like. Someone else will write it down so the judge can decide how to take care of you. But you’ll tell the story through answers to questions.”

“Questions?”

“Yeah, like this. Watch.” Matt turned his head towards Foggy. “Foggy, what did you do today?”

He pretended to think about it. “Well, I woke up and went to the office and was _very productive_ for like a whole hour straight. Then I procrastinated, then did some more work, and then went to get a sandwich for lunch.”

“What kind of sandwich?” Matt asked.

“A turkey sub. It was really long and I still have some leftovers.”

“What kind of toppings?”

“The basics. Cheese, lettuce, peppers, carrots.”

Ella wrinkled her nose. “Carrots on a sandwich?”

“I know,” Matt muttered in an aside, before turning back to Foggy. “What did you do after that?”

“I met up with my buddy to come talk to one of my favorite people.” He winked at Ella, who blushed.

“See?” Matt turned back to her. “Like that. I ask questions and he answers and it tells a story.”

Her whole face lit up with excitement. “Can I try?”

“In a moment, yeah.” Matt cleared his throat. “The thing is, Ella, the questions have to be pretty specific. The story the judge wants to know is about how your mom and dad treated you, so most of the questions will be about that.”

She seemed to wilt, which absolutely broke Foggy’s heart. “Do they _have_ to ask about that?”

“Yeah, pumpkin,” Foggy said regretfully. “And there might be a lot of follow-up questions that seem really annoying, especially if it’s about something you don’t want to talk about. But we’ll have stuff for you to color the whole time.” He gave her a smile. “So I want you to think of a bunch of things you want to color and save your favorite ideas. That way, it’ll be more fun.”

Not more fun. Maybe less awful.

She wasn’t distracted at all by the coloring idea. “What if I don’t have the right answers?”

“It’s _your_ story, Ella,” Matt reminded her. “As long as you tell the truth, none of the answers will be wrong.”

She tore at a few pieces of grass. “I don’t want to talk about my dad.”

Matt moved subtly closer. “I know. Talking about stuff like this is really, really hard.” He gave a small, unhappy laugh. “I’m not very good at it either.”

Her wide eyes blinked up at him. “You’re not?”

He shook his head. “But your words also have a lot more power than mine ever have. Remember, this whole thing is set up to help you. To make sure he never gives you sad colors again.” His fingers clenched where Ella couldn’t see them. But Foggy could, and suddenly he knew why Matt had been so angry at the gym. “Remember, Ella? You told us about that at your house. You just have to tell that story again.”

“But what if they don’t _get_ it?”

Oh. Because Matt had _gotten_ it. And Ella had somehow known he would get it, even before she’d actually known him. Foggy hoped she couldn’t read the sadness on his face as much as he hoped Matt couldn’t sense it.

Matt scooted even closer, which Ella took as an invitation to climb into his lap. “Think about it this way,” he said. “You’re not talking to them. You’re talking _through_ them. They’re gonna give you some direction with their questions, but you can talk to whoever you want. Foggy and I will be right there, so you can talk to us. Or Miss Alice. Or you could pretend you’re talking to people from one of your worlds. People who get it.”

Leaning her head against his chest, she seemed to consider that. “What if they get mad? The other lawyers?”

“They might,” Matt said seriously. “But if they get mad at anyone, it should be at Foggy and me. If they get mad at you, they shouldn’t be. Do you understand that?”

She scrunched up her face. “Yes?”

“And, Ella, listen. Foggy and I can stop the whole conversation if we think we need to. But I know you can be brave. Your story is really, really important and I want them all to hear you tell it.”

Wait, Matt, stop. Please, don’t make her feel trapped in this.

“Hey,” Foggy said softly. “If you need to stop for any reason, just tell us. We’ll stop.”

Matt was wearing his sunglasses, but he still managed to send a sad look at Foggy over Ella’s head.

He ignored it. In this room, Foggy had to prioritize one kicked puppy. And it wasn’t Matt.

Matt

Matt felt his own energy crackling through his system, still building, as he let the rooftops carry him to his meeting place with Stone. He hated that Ella had to do this. He hated that Foggy thought Matt was pushing Ella into this. He hated both Conways for fighting to keep hold of a little girl when already they’d utterly failed at taking care of her. He hated himself for not fixing this.

He was trying. And sometimes, you had to go through something hard in order to overcome something else. He swore by that doctrine.

He finally landed on the rooftop next to Stone, immediately drawing the knife Stone had given him. “You ready?”

“Hang on.” Stone, for the first time, wasn’t waiting for him with knives already drawn. “When was the last time you raced someone?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Matt narrowed his eyes. “I was in a three-legged race once with Foggy,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding. “A stupid law school summer party. We got second.”

“Cute,” Stone drawled. “I’m thinking of something more sophisticated. We spend all our time on rooftops anyway. Why not find a better one?”

“What, now?” Matt raised his eyebrows beneath his mask. “You want to race me,” he clarified, “over the roofs of Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Seems to me like you could use it. Let’s find our own skyline.”

Matt cocked his head. “You—”

Too late—Stone was already on the next roof.

Matt laughed before he could stop himself and took off after him. Stone had a head start, but this was Hell’s Kitchen. This was Matt’s home.

And he knew all the shortcuts. He veered right, jumped down onto a bakery with an extensive system of piping. Scrambling up it, he reached a higher level and leapt up from there, catching onto a rail and pulling himself over.

He didn’t even know where the finish line was, but he trusted he’d know it when he found it.

He vaulted over a low wall, shoulder-rolling to keep his momentum. He could still track Stone, forging his own path, but Stone had fallen behind now. Matt ran up a ramp and hurtled another wall, grabbing onto a trellis and climbing still higher so he could jump down, down onto a stretch of apartments.

This was his favorite part.

He couldn’t run like this anywhere else. Nowhere else was so high that he was invisible and nowhere else was so long and flat that he could sprint without stopping.

When he reached the end of the strip, he didn’t think before taking the leftward route, the route that would take him to his own apartment.

He beat Stone by fifty-seven seconds.

Stone dropped onto Matt’s roof beside him. “Tell me that wasn’t fun,” he said triumphantly.

“If you have to force the confession out of me, was it really?”

“Considering how much I’m sacrificing to train you, I think you should shut up and oblige me.”

That was fair. “Yeah.” Matt grinned. “Yeah, that was fun.”

Stone stretched. “Same time tomorrow night?”

“Yeah.” Matt stalled for a moment. “Or you could come in. Grab a water or something.”

There was a moment of silence in which Matt was sure Stone was regarding him. “There’s plenty of water where I’m going. If you offered alcohol, however…I might take you up on that.”

Matt gave a tight nod.

It _felt_ significant, letting Stone cross the threshold into Matt’s apartment. And Matt was certain it actually was significant, somehow. He was less certain why.

Anyway, he tried not to pay attention to Stone snooping around while Matt got a bottle of beer for him and water for himself, since Maggie kept hounding him over hydration. He took the first sip and wondered what Foggy would think if he knew. _Hi, Foggy, Stone is my friend now. I joined him for a parkour race across Hell’s Kitchen instead of paying attention to the people who need help._

He had to tell Foggy. At this point, he was definitely violating the list. Technically, he didn’t remember the list saying anything about training with anyone and he certainly hadn’t had to ask permission to train Karen at Fogwell’s. But it was a legal loophole that utterly ignored the spirit of the list.

Then again, the spirit of the list only applied to things Foggy deemed bad decisions, and Foggy’s perspective was subjective. Training with Stone might not even be a bad idea, in which case it fell entirely outside the scope of the list.

Unless you zoomed out more and considered that the point of the list was in fact that Matt could not be trusted to identify bad decisions on his own.

Well, if that was the point, Foggy should’ve made it explicit.

“This place is fancy,” Stone said neutrally.

“Can you see the billboard?”

“Impossible not to. Guess that explains how you can afford this.”

Also answered the question of whether Stone could see at all. Matt wasn’t sure if part of him was glad, because it meant he and Stick still had blindness as something just between the two of them, or disappointed because he couldn’t share this with Stone. “Stick wasn’t impressed.”

“He never was.”

Matt sat on the edge of the coffee table. “No? Not even with you?”

Stone took a long pull from his beer. “Of course not.”

Matt licked his lips as Stick’s voice cut into his thoughts. _No, I'm proud of you. I really am._

His dad would’ve been proud for all the right reasons. Karen seemed to be proud of him for similar reasons. Foggy would be disappointed by the secret-keeping, but other than that, things were better.

To his own surprise, it occurred to him that the thought of Stick’s pride suddenly meant very little to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The carrot thing is a reference to this hilarious tumblr exchange: http://adobe-outdesign.tumblr.com/post/174511915417/vainvaihe-things-got-a-little-heated-in-the-gc


	6. Carry Me to Your Graceful Place

Matt

A few days later, he woke to the distinctive feeling of blood gluing his sheets to his skin. Stone had decided to use two knives during last night’s training, leaving Matt cut up enough that Stone had actually offered to stitch his wounds and Matt had actually let him. Clearly, he hadn’t been invested in doing a great job.

Matt swore softly. There was no way he could fix this himself, and he certainly wasn’t about to go crawling back to Stone.

Well, maybe it was about time he stopped ignoring the Bad Decisions Spectrum. He considered his options. He needed to tell Foggy at some point, as well as Karen, who was on a plane flying to Vermont. But it would be easier to practice with Maggie first. Let her see the wounds, let her ask the questions. Try to answer. He reached for his phone.

She pushed her way into the apartment as soon as he opened the door. Strange how so small a person could be so forceful. “You said you bled onto your sheets?”

“I just need some stitches.”

“You need a good many things, Matthew.”

He trailed after her into his bedroom where she started stripping away his sheets. “Mom, no…”

“Do you even know how to wash silk?”

What did she think he did, bought new sheets every time he bled on them? But he thought it wiser not to argue as she made a pile by his bathroom sink before fetching his first aid kit.

“Sit down.”

He obeyed and unzipped his hoodie, letting it fall back so she could see the wounds on his chest.

“Stitch these up yourself, did you?” she asked with just a hint of disapproval. “And how did you get so injured? Do I even want to know?”

“I want you to know.”

“Oh. Well, then, that’s new and exciting.” She unscrewed a bottle of alcohol.

Matt hated this part. He could already taste it in the air, the little particles, and now he was imagining its burn. “I’ve been training more. Harder.”

Her hands, poking at the deepest cut, stilled. “Are you saying you’ve done this to yourself?”

“What? No.” He felt the needle puncture his skin. “I just never learned knives.” She made a skeptical sound and he hurried to clarify. “I mean, I _deal_ with them all the time, but I don’t actually know how to use them. I found someone to teach me.”

“Oh, you asked someone else to do this to you? Because that’s much better.”

“Yeah, well, he also offered to stitch me up, so…”

“And he did a pretty poor job of it,” she retorted.

Her hair brushed against his chest, a much nicer sensation than the thread pinching his skin together. He focused on her smell, on the calluses of her fingers born of decades of spending herself on behalf of others. As much as he hated to bother her, he got the feeling that she appreciated healing him, using this gift she’d honed over years to help him, bringing him into this integral part of her life.

He felt the same.

She tied the thread and snipped the excess. “Who is this person you found?”

“That’s the thing.” Shifting a little in his seat, Matt closed his eyes against the sting of alcohol on his next wound, wrinkled his nose against the pungent scent. “He already knows who I am. Knows almost everything about me, actually.”

“I can only assume you didn’t want that.”

“I didn’t. Stick told him. Years ago. This guy, Stone?” Matt put his hand over hers, holding some of the skin beneath in place to give her a small break. “He’s better than I am, but only because of the knives. I think.”

“Seems foolish on his part, then, to train you to defeat his only advantage.”

Foolish or selfless. “It is.”

“Is he doing it for Stick’s sake or for yours?”

She’d been back in his life for less than a year, and she already knew his world so well. Matt thought about it. “Both?”

“Is he helping you?”

“I’m getting better at fighting.”

She paused in her stitching to push some of his hair back. “That’s only part of what I asked. Is he helping _you_?”

Matt didn’t hesitate. “I’m not sure.”

“Walk me through it.”

“I’m better, stronger. Not as worried about protecting the people I love.” He nodded his head in her direction. “And I haven’t practiced with another person who wasn’t trying to kill me since…I don’t even know.” He did. Elektra. He managed half a grin. “Frankly, I enjoy it.”

“I’m glad. You need some fun. But you wouldn’t be talking like this if things were as simple as that.”

“You got me.”

She pulled back, put her bloody hands in her lap. “And?”

He kind of wished she’d go back to stabbing him with the needle, because now he had neither her hair nor his pain to buffer him from her piercing study. He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “You know, he just…he sounds like Stick.”

“Coming from you, that could mean a lot of things.”

He laughed faintly and rubbed his thumb over his busted knuckles. “It’s what he says, how he says it. It just…Stick always had a way of getting in my head, you know? I thought Stone might be different. And he is, sometimes. But still.”

She waited about twenty seconds to make sure he had nothing else to add. He wondered if she’d learned it as a nun, this ability to listen so well, or if it was an inherent part of her. “Is it affecting your work?”

“No.” If anything, it made him feel more confident that he could protect Ella.

“What about sleeping and eating?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, Mom.”

“I have to ask. How are your relationships with your friends?”

Matt’s eyes widened slightly. “I think…I think nothing’s actually wrong?” He hated that his voice went up like it was a question, like it was some impossible statement.

To his surprise, she didn’t linger over the point. “And what about your view of yourself?”

“What?”

“Does training with Stone affect how you think about yourself?”

“I don’t…” He frowned. “I don’t know. He thinks I need to be better. Fixed.”

“Do you agree?”

Matt shrugged. “Better, yes. Fixed…no. I’m not broken.” He hesitated. “Right? Not anymore.” Never mind that Stick was still in his head, and that probably wasn’t normal.

He still kind of wished Stick could see him now, see how satisfied Matt was with his life. Wished Stick could have the chance to take back all those things he'd said.

“There’s, uh…there’s more on my back.” He turned, shedding his hoodie entirely, and felt the sharp stab of the needle anew.

“And how is Ella’s case going?” Maggie asked, effortlessly making conversation to distract him from the sensation of the thread slipping under his skin.

“Her deposition is tomorrow.”

“Are you ready?”

“Honestly, the better question is whether Foggy’s ready.”

“Don’t you let that boy go,” Maggie said. “He cares more than almost anyone I’ve ever met.”

“I know,” Matt agreed quickly.

“And Ella? Is she ready?”

“I think so. I’ll talk to her tonight, just to make sure. But I think she can handle it.”

“For now, maybe.” Maggie snipped at some thread. “I just want to know that little girl will have someone to help her when she’s older, help her deal with the way all this will shape her personality.”

He frowned. “It doesn’t have to. She’s still Ella.”

“You don’t think all this turmoil might have some effect?”

“Does it matter?” He shifted under her touch. “We all have trauma. Doesn’t mean we have to succumb to it.”

“I never said anything about succumbing,” she said lightly, “and frankly, I don’t even know what you mean by that.”

“It’s like…” He tipped his head back. “Say alcoholism runs in your family but you don’t know it. Maybe the first time you get drunker than you wanted, you figure, you shouldn’t have done that. But you didn’t really know and you weren’t really thinking. It was a mistake, nothing more. Every dog gets its first bite. But then, then you realize that you have this…susceptibility.” He tipped his head slightly towards her. “Now, you find yourself in the same position, too drunk and out of control, and it’s not just a mistake anymore. Now it’s a choice.”

“The categories aren’t mutually exclusive.” She tied off the thread a bit more sharply than was strictly necessary. “Identifying a weakness or vulnerability doesn’t leave us to blame for any mistakes that stem from that. Or do you think we’re all better off living in ignorance of our weaknesses? Then we’d never be able to say we should’ve known better.”

“That’s not…I’m not saying that.”

“But you are.” She tied up the last of the thread and put her hand under his chin, turning him back around to face her. “You know, grace is supposed to be a Catholic thing. Not that you ever seem very motivated by it.”

“Hey,” he protested.

“I know you hate losing control, Matthew. But the things from your childhood, the things others have done to you…along with the things I’ve done…”

“Mom,” he said.

She drew a slow breath. “Things that make you angrier, or prone to lying, or inclined to think you’re just better off alone…those things don’t disappear just because you got a fancy law degree.”

“I know that.”

“Hallelujah.” She traced his face with one calloused finger. “And I’m so proud of you for confronting these things. But just because you recognize them does not make you a failure every time they affect you.” She sighed. He hated making her sigh. “I wish you could give yourself permission to make mistakes.”

“I thought we were talking about Ella.”

“Hmmm,” was all she said. Then she stood up. “Now, will you please let me see about those sheets?”

Matt was fine with making mistakes. He made mistakes all the time. The only thing he would not allow himself to do was make mistakes that affected anyone he cared about.

Well, no. He made those too. He just…tried harder not to.

And he _was_ getting better.

Now, for instance, as he lingered while Alice supervised Ella getting ready for bed. For all that he really was confident Ella would be fine, he’d asked Burnham for one last chance to meet with her, to explain to her how important this really was. Without Foggy this time.

Ella sat on her bed, smelling strongly of kid’s toothpaste in a room that was warmer than Matt was used to. Her roommates were having a sleepover somewhere else, leaving them some privacy. Alice kissed Ella’s forehead. “Now remember, the door will be open and I’ll be right in the hallway. Call if you need me.”

“’Kay.” She kicked her feet against the edge of the bed, legs too short to reach the ground, as Alice left the room. “Matt, I have a question.”

He sat on the floor in front of her. “Yeah?”

“About the depa…depi…”

“Deposition?”

“Will I have to see my dad?”

“No, sweetie. He’s not gonna be anywhere near you.”

She kicked a little harder. “But I have to talk about him.”

“Remember how excited you are about getting a new family? If you want that life, you’ve gotta fight for it. And right now, that means talking about your dad. But remember, the women who want to ask you questions, they don’t really know what happened. They’re just guessing. _You_ know the true story.”

Her fingers wrapped around a blanket corner, twisting it. “Did you have to talk to people like this so you could stay at St. Angies?”

He put one hand on her knee and rubbed his thumb over the soft fabric of her pajama pants. It was covered in spots of a different texture. “No,” he said slowly. “I was at St. Agnes’ because my parents weren’t around anymore. They weren’t arguing about whether I should go back to them.”

“I wish my parents would stop arguing.”

He’d have given anything for Maggie to have fought for him at the time. He still didn’t think Elizabeth Conway was a great mother right now, but surely she had that capability. If only she fought for the right reasons. Maybe she really was pursuing the case because she loved Ella, but wouldn’t truer love prefer the best for Ella?

“Especially my dad,” she said, a fierce edge creeping into her voice. “I wish he’d just go away. Matt, why won’t he leave me alone?”

Kyle Conway. Matt still didn’t get why he was so invested in this.

“You know,” he said slowly. “There was this guy. When I was a kid. I told you he kind of tried to adopt me? But not really,” he added, lest she get confused. Too late, probably. “He just spent time with me, tried to help me grow up. But like I told you, he had his own reasons for that. Remember?”

“Bad reasons,” she echoed. “What were they?”

Matt rubbed his thumb in a faster pattern. “I don’t really know. He thought he could turn me into something he could use. Kind of like when you’re playing make believe, and you need someone to act out a part? It was like that.”

“Is my dad doing that?”

“I think your dad wants to think he’s a good guy, and I think you’re such a sweet person that having you around helps him pretend that it’s true.” He leaned closer, touched his forehead against hers, felt her scrunch up her face in delight at his proximity. “You’re pretty fantastic.”

“Think so?” she whispered.

“You make people better. But some people won’t really get better no matter how much you try to help them. Your dad is just…he’s not safe.”

She frowned against him. “Was your person safe?”

“Stick,” he said quietly. “His name was Stick. And no. He wasn’t. He was…” Matt pressed his lips together for a moment. “Well, he was a lot like your dad.”

Her head stopped bracing his as she ducked down to hug him. “Matt, I’m _sorry_.”

“Me too.” He held her closer. “I didn’t realize it at the time. Wouldn’t have admitted it. But they were wrong to treat us that way. They shouldn’t have done that. You understand?”

She nodded against his chest, but it was hesitant.

Resting his chin on her hair, he sighed.

“I’ll do it, Matt.”

“What’s that?” he murmured.

“The deposition. If you’ll be there, I’ll do it.”

She was far braver than he would’ve been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS THE LAST BIT OF SETUP BEFORE EVERYTHING STARTS HAPPENING GUYS I'M SO EXCITED.
> 
> Please note that I added a tag regarding suicide. I'll drop a warning in front of the chapter that really gets into it, but I thought I should mention it now since I didn't initially include it as a tag.
> 
> I LOVE YOU ALL AND YOUR GENIUS COMMENTS.


	7. Young Diaries

Matt

He woke up early enough to stop at Fogwell’s on the way to Everett’s. He still remembered Kyle Conway’s scent from his deposition, and no matter how hard Matt tried, he couldn’t get it out of his head.

_Matt, why won’t he leave me alone?_

The bag absorbed his blows without complaint. That wasn’t how it would go if he could punch his real target. Conway wouldn’t be able to take it. Matt would make him beg for mercy, swear on his worthless life that he’d never touch his daughter again.

Except.

Matt leaned his head against the bag, letting his sweat run down his face and absorb into taut material, breathing in the smells that still reminded him of his dad. He thought, for a moment, of Karen arriving in a small town to take care of her father, and suddenly his dad’s face appeared in his mind’s eye.

The memory was strange, perceived utterly unlike how he saw the world now. No scent, very little sound. Just his dad’s brown eyes, and the blood on his forehead, the feel of his rough skin as Matt took care of him. As they took care of each other.

That was what Ella deserved.

 _He’s gone now,_ Stick said. _But I’m here._

Shut up, Stick. He threw a last punch at the bag for good measure and hit the showers.

Foggy

When Foggy arrived at the gates of Everett’s, Matt was already waiting for him, wearing a different dress shirt under his jacket than the cream-colored one he’d had on that morning. Foggy suspected he’d bled through it and itched to ask him about it, about all the bleeding, but this really wasn’t the time. Instead, he focused on helping Matt set up a coloring station at a table in a small, brightly-lit classroom that Burnham had reserved for them. The walls were obnoxiously yellow. Probably supposed to be happy or encourage mindfulness or something.

The court reporter and videographer showed up, early enough as requested that Foggy and Matt could remind them to stay unobtrusive. The attorneys arrived next, and the four layers basically ignored each other until finally Alice brought Ella in.

Johnston made a beeline for Ella. “Hi, sweetie. My name’s Bethany Johnston, but _you_ can call me Beth, if you want.”

“Beth?” Ella repeated cautiously. “My name’s Elizabeth.”

“I know, sweetie. Does anyone ever call you Beth?”

She shook her head, but she gave Johnston a thoughtful look. “ _You_ can call me Beth. If you want.”

Oh, great.

Johnston smiled. “That might get confusing, both of us being called Beth. But it also sounds like fun.”

Stupendous. They were bonding. Foggy stepped in. “We brought some stuff to color, Ella. Wanna get set up at this table here?”

She gasped. “I just remembered! Matt won’t be able to feel my pictures!”

“That’s so sweet of you to think of him,” Johnston cooed.

Foggy didn’t glare, but he wanted to.

Matt was maintaining his polite smile. “Ella, you can always describe it to me, or we could paint over it later. But thanks.” He folded his hands on the table and everyone else took their cues off of him, settling around the table while Alice stood protectively behind Ella. “Do you know why you’re here today?” Matt began.

Ella nodded. “I’m here to talk about Mommy. And…my dad.”

“Right. So I’ll ask you some questions, and then Miss Johnston, and then Miss Hayes. If you don’t understand a question, go ahead and ask for clarification before you try to answer. We’ll try to ask about your mom and dad separately, but if you start talking about both, that’s okay. We can take a break anytime you need. Does all of that make sense?”

“I’m ready,” she said in a voice that was…almost steely. Definitely unlike anything he’d heard in her voice before. It sounded like Matt when he was concussed but insisted he was fine.

Matt cleared his throat. “Recently, you’ve started living at Everett’s with Miss Alice. Do you know why?”

“Mommy and my dad are in trouble and I’m not supposed to stay with them. But I can still visit Mommy.”

“Very good. Do you know why your mom is in trouble?”

Ella shook her head. “She’s…not a good mom?” She started drawing, adding pale blue lines to the paper in front of her. “I don’t know. People say that.”

This was potentially problematic. Foggy and Matt had been careful, but if the court thought Ella was just reciting what she’d been told by Everett’s legal counsel, it would throw her testimony into question.

“Who says that, Ella?” Matt asked.

“Miss Alice. She just said that one time. I think she was mad.”

Matt tilted his head at Alice with a slight smirk before refocusing on Ella. “When you lived with your mom, what did you do together?”

“We played! And sometimes she’d take me to parks.”

“Did you play together at the parks?”

“Well…Mommy played on her phone while I played. Sometimes I went to the park without her, but one time I stayed really late and it got all dark and I got scared. Mrs. Thompson found me and—” Then Ella looked at Johnston, who’s eyes were narrowing by the smallest degree. Ella stopped talking.

“What happened when Mrs. Thompson found you?” Matt asked.

“Nothing,” Ella mumbled, glancing guiltily at Johnston. “She took me home.”

Foggy opened his mouth—Matt couldn’t have seen Johnston’s expression. But technically, glaring at a witness, even a child, was perfectly permissible. And right now, Ella was Matt’s responsibility. Foggy decided to reserve his interruptions for something really egregious rather than undermine his partner.

“Home,” Matt repeated. “Is there anything you don’t like about your house?”

“It gets dirty and sometimes it’s dark, even at daytime. And it gets cold. Sometimes I have to make blanket forts just to not get cold.”

“What about friends? Do your friends come over sometimes?”

“My friend Grace used to come over, but then she stopped.” Ella switched to a green colored pencil. “Her mommy said it was too dirty and not safe.”

Foggy stared at Johnston, daring her to make a hearsay objection. She didn’t.

“Not safe?” Matt repeated.

Ella shrugged. “I don’t know. She said there were dangerous things. I don’t know.”

“Have you ever been left home alone?”

“All the time,” she said innocently. “I like to sing really loudly because my dad isn’t there to tell me to shut the hell up.”

Foggy blinked. So did Johnston. Hayes pursed her lips.

Matt, however, didn’t react. “How often were you left home alone?”

“I don’t know. A lot.”

“What do you like about Everett’s that you wish happened at home?”

She visibly perked up. “I have lots of friends at Everett’s! And there’s always food and it’s always warm and nobody yells or hits me when I break the rules.”

After a few more questions, Matt nodded slowly. “All right. Thank you for telling me all this. I need to ask some questions about your dad now. Are you ready?”

She tightened her grip on her pencil and stopped drawing. “Okay.”

“Does your dad still live with your mom?”

“No, he left. Last year, around Christmas.”

“Do you know why he left?”

“Mommy didn’t want him around.”

“How did you feel when he left?”

“I miss him.” She started coloring again. Gray. “But it’s nice that he doesn’t yell at me so much when I got in trouble.”

“What else happened when you got in trouble?”

She stopped coloring again. “Sometimes he, um.” Carefully setting down the pencil, she pointed at her arms. “He’d give me the sad colors.”

“She’s pointing,” Foggy said, lest the record reflect Matt’s supersenses.

“Where are you pointing?” Matt asked.

“My arms.” Then she pointed to her throat. “And my neck. I was really bad. I broke a fancy thing in the house and Mommy wouldn’t stop crying.”

That was…that was new. Right? That was new. But Matt didn’t look surprised.

“Has he ever made you bleed?” he asked.

“Yes. But not too much,” she added quickly. “Just a little.”

“Ella, have you ever had a broken arm?”

She shrank down in her seat. “Yes.”

“How did it break?”

“My dad,” she whispered.

“Did you go to the hospital?”

She barely managed a nod.

Matt flexed his jaw for a moment and Foggy knew he hated dragging this out of her, but… “Did you nod or shake your head, Ella? I can’t see.”

Her eyes watered. “I’m sorry, Matt. I nodded.”

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “You’re doing great. What did you tell the people at the hospital? Did you tell them your dad broke your arm?”

She started to shake her head, caught herself, and looked at Foggy for help. “I…no, I…”

“It’s okay,” Matt said, tapping lightly on the table to draw her attention back to him. “Hospitals can be scary, right? I just need to know what you told the doctors and nurses when they asked about your arm.”

“I told them I broke it at the park.” Her voice was so quiet Foggy could hardly hear it. “I told them I broke it on the monkey bars.”

“Why did you tell them that, Ella?”

A fat tear rolled down her cheek. “My dad told me to.”

Matt let the heaviness of those words settle over the room. The silence stretched long enough to make Foggy uncomfortable, but he guessed Matt was picking up on something from Hayes or Johnston.

Finally, he offered Ella a subtle smile. “Okay, Ella. One last thing. I heard something scary happened to you recently, while you were at Everett’s. Can you tell us about that?”

Wait, what? Foggy tried to stifle his surprise. This wasn’t one of the questions they’d prepared.

Ella wiped at her face and took a steadying breath and…and then she flashed something like a smile back at Matt. _What_. “I can talk about that. I was outside and I broke the rules. I went past the gate because I saw a really cute dogs. But the people who had the dog were bad, and they took me away.”

“Why did you break the rules?”

“Because Mommy never cared what I did when I was outside by myself.” She turned large eyes onto Johnston. “She let me play outside all the time without any safety rules. It makes it really hard to remember all the rules Miss Alice tells me about.”

Johnston’s ears reddened somewhat.

Oh, they’d _planned_ this. The little sneaks.

“What happened with the bad people?” Matt asked. “Can you tell us about that?”

“I was really scared,” she said sweetly. “There were a bunch of bad guys who took me somewhere dark. I’ve never been there before. They were going to hurt me. I thought they might break my arm.” Then she looked at Hayes. “You know, like my dad.”

Hayes raised her eyebrows and jotted a note.

“And then Daredevil came and rescued me,” Ella finished quickly, “and took me back to my room so I could be safe.”

“Your room where?” Matt pushed. “Where, exactly, do you feel safe?”

“Everett’s,” she answered smoothly.

Foggy didn’t know if he wanted to shake them both for their gambit or applaud them. Neither Hayes nor Johnston would want to touch the kidnapping issue with a ten-foot pole now. This must’ve been what Matt was working on at Everett’s last night.

Sneaks. Both of them.

At least Ella looked pleased with herself, and in this context, Foggy really couldn’t begrudge her any small bit of happiness.

Matt gave her a satisfied nod. “Okay, that’s all the questions I have. You did a really great job, Ella. Do you need a break before Miss Johnston asks you some questions?”

Something almost masklike slid over her young face and Foggy resisted the urge to shiver. “Let’s keep going.”

Matt cocked his head ever so slightly, eyebrows drawing together, but he gave another nod and Foggy wished he knew what they were communicating to each other. Matt gestured at Johnston. “Go for it.”

“Hi, sweetie.” Johnston’s face was open, kind. “I’ll try not to ask too many questions, okay?”

“I’m ready,” Ella said.

“What was your favorite thing about your mom?”

It was a good question to start with. The mask dropped away and Ella launched into a story about making peanut butter cookies that made the whole house smell like sugar and peanut butter.

“That _does_ sound fun,” Johnston agreed. “Now, you said earlier that sometimes your mom left you alone at the house. When she did that, do you know where she was going?”

“Sometimes to be with her boyfriend? But she didn’t always tell me.”

So, Elizabeth had a boyfriend. Foggy wondered if Johnston knew that. Or Hayes. Or Kyle Conway.

“When your mom left you home alone, did she give you numbers to call if you needed help?”

Ella returned to drawing. “There’s a list on the fridge.”

“Great. What happens when you got sick? How did your mom take care of you?”

“I don’t get sick very much,” she said proudly. “When I do, I get to stay home from school and watch TV and drink soda.”

“That sounds nice. Did you ever get in trouble at school?”

Ella ducked her head a little. “Sometimes.”

“What does your mom do when you get in trouble?”

“She just takes me home. Tells me not to get in trouble again.”

“Very good. What does your dad do?”

She chewed on her lip. “He gets mad. And…”

“And he does all that stuff you told Mr. Murdock about, right?”

Her nod was reluctant, but Foggy was just thankful that she wasn’t pushing Ella to rehash everything she’d just said about her dad’s abuse.

Then Johnston leaned forward slightly. “Did your dad ever hit your mom?”

Ella dropped her pencil.

“Ella? Did he?”

She opened her mouth, but she didn’t make a sound as memories flickered across her face—and something else flashed across Matt’s.

Foggy threw Johnston a warning look as he put his hand on Ella’s shoulder. “Take your time, pumpkin.”

She jerked her head in a nod and took a deep breath, twisting her hands together in her lap. “Yes,” she finally said.

“Frequently?” Johnston pushed.

“I don’t…” Ella’s voice was thin. “Yes?”

Johnston’s eyes lit up. “Can you tell me what exactly—”

“No,” Foggy cut in. “You got what you need from Ella. Ask Elizabeth if you want details.”

Johnston gave him a long, calculating look. Then she smiled. “Of course.”

Matt

Ella had watched her dad beat her mom.

He’d thought he was maxed out on fury towards Kyle Conway, you know? But this…this was a new level.

Sure, by this point, Matt could wrap his head around the fact that Stick shouldn’t have treated him the way he did. And if he _really_ thought about it, the idea of Stick treating Elektra that way during her training…he clenched his hands into fists under the table, dug his nails into his skin. But the thought of actually being present while Stick hurt someone else? If there was nothing he could do to stop it?

He could imagine it. He wished he couldn’t.

Hayes cleared her throat, about to begin her own questions, and Matt wanted to interrupt, stop the interview, drag her away so he could force her to explain how she could take Kyle Conway on as a client. But he couldn’t touch her, neither as Matt Murdock nor as Daredevil.

“Are you ready, Ella?” Hayes asked.

Ella nodded, but her body language screamed the opposite.

“Perfect. Let’s begin. You like to make up worlds, right?”

“All the time,” Ella said suspiciously.

“What do the people do in those worlds?”

Her body relaxed—slightly—with relief. “They sing and dance and draw and pick flowers.”

“Do they ever do bad things?”

Ella picked up a pencil and started scribbling, maybe unintentionally. “I’m tired of talking about the bad things.”

“Do you need a break?” Matt interjected, probably sounding a bit too angry.

Ella sat up a little straighter, head lifted. “I wanna finish this.”

She would’ve made his dad proud.

Hayes’ suit shifted as she folded her arms on the table. “We’re almost done.” Lie. “What do bad people do in those worlds?”

Ella dug her pencil into the paper; she was about to punch a hole through it. “They fight. They hit each other and yell. But they always get in trouble for it.”

Hayes leaned forward and Matt tensed. “How do we know,” she said slowly, “that you’re talking about your dad and not something that happened in those worlds?”

Ella moved the pencil to her mouth and chewed on it uncertainly. Her head turned minutely, probably shooting a glance at Foggy.

“Go ahead and answer, pumpkin,” Foggy said gently. “Just tell her what you know is true.”

“Um, my dad’s not in the worlds.” She sounded confused. As she should be. How was a seven-year-old supposed to explain how she knew the difference between fictional worlds and the real world?

“The worlds are made up, right?”

“But my dad’s not made up.”

“All right, Ella, I understand,” Hayes said. “Don’t worry.”

Foggy relaxed slightly, but Matt could sense Hayes’ heartrate increasing with adrenaline. She was nowhere close to finished.

“Have you ever gotten in trouble at Everett’s?” she asked.

“A lot,” Ella admitted.

“Have you ever gotten in trouble for lying?”

She ducked her head. “I’m really sorry.”

“I’m glad you’re sorry, but please answer the question. Have you ever gotten in trouble for lying?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Have you ever lied to get out of trouble?”

“I’ve _tried_ ,” Ella muttered guiltily. “Miss Alice doesn’t believe me.”

“Doesn’t believe you,” Hayes repeated thoughtfully. She made another note. “Has your mom ever let you skip school?”

She squirmed in her seat. “She didn’t care. My dad got angry later.”

“Did you lie to your teachers about why you weren’t in school?”

“I didn’t want to get in trouble.” Then Ella reacted to whatever was on Hayes’ face. “I mean, yes.”

“I want to ask about your dad now. No, Ella, it’s fine. It’s just a few more questions. When you broke your arm, did your dad try to help you?”

“Yes. He, um, wrapped my arm up with a stick.”

A splint. Matt had a vivid memory of Stick doing the same for him, giving him a story to tell the nuns so…so they wouldn’t get in trouble.

“Why did you lie about why your arm was broken?”

“I already _said_.” Ella’s voice got louder, tinged with anxiety. “Dad _told_ me to.”

“Do you think your dad loves you?”

“I…yes?”

“Do you love your dad?”

“Yes,” she said more firmly.

Hayes leaned forward. “Ella, sweetie, if you love your dad and your dad loves you, why are you lying about him hurting you?”

The anxiety that had been building in her all morning finally snapped. The salt of Ella’s tears spiced the air, causing something hot to wash through Matt. “I’m _not_ lying,” she wailed. “He just…he said I’m not supposed to tell.”

“Did your mom ever tell you not to tell?”

“I don’t—”

“Did your mom tell you stories about your dad hitting people?”

“She—”

“Was your mom—”

“Stop interrupting,” Matt snapped.

Ella sniffled loudly; Foggy passed her a box of tissues and stood up. “Are you finished, Hayes?”

“I’m just trying to establish whether she’s talking about what she herself has experienced or about stories her mother fed her.”

“I get that,” Foggy said icily, “but you need to back off. Yesterday.”

Ella swallowed hard. “Can I be done now?”

Matt stood up as well. “Yeah, Ella. You’re good.”

He could _hear_ Hayes grinding her teeth together, but she pushed back her chair. “Of course. Thanks so much, Ella. I really appreciate all of this.”

No one in the room believed her.

Ella scrambled from her chair and seemed to oscillate between Matt, Foggy, and Alice for a moment, but Matt and Alice were literally vibrating with tension so he really couldn’t blame her for picking Foggy. She flung herself at him and he picked her up, holding her tightly to his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo Ella and Matt's ploy to keep the other attorneys from talking about the kidnapping was 100% inspired by Soulfire. Thank you, you incredible readers, for all of your inspirational comments!


	8. Tell Me Again

Matt

_You’re emotional._

Shut up, Stick.

The classroom slowly emptied. The lawyers, the court reporter and videographer. Ella and Alice. Finally, only Matt and Foggy remained.

“That wasn’t worth it,” Foggy said in a scratchy voice as soon as everyone had left.

“She’ll recover,” Matt said through gritted teeth.

“Maybe she will, but I definitely won’t.” He dropped his head into his hands. “We have to win this case, Matt. We just have to.”

“We will.”

“But first, we are going to a park.”

“We are?”

“Yes, my friend, because I am stressed and if we go back to the office, I will punch something expensive.” He got up, passed Matt his cane, led the way out of Everett’s. “Do you mind parks?”

Matt allowed himself to be steered in the opposite direction from the office. “Why would I mind parks?”

“If I could smell everything everyone and their dog left behind…”

“The whole world smells like that.” The fresh scents of growing things made up for everything else, but even if they didn’t, Matt would be going anyway. Because for some reason, Foggy—Foggy, who’d so adamantly argued against letting Ella get deposed in the first place—had failed to anticipate just how hard it would be.

Actually, no. He’d anticipated correctly for Ella. He just hadn’t been prepared for how hard it would be on him. And wasn’t that just like Foggy? Always worrying about everyone else first?

“You gonna be okay?” Matt asked, feeling the ground change from concrete to grass under his shoes.

“I’m just stressed.” Like Matt couldn’t tell. “There’s so much at stake here, and both Hayes and Johnston are utter sharks, and Karen’s gone, and _why are you always bleeding these days_.”

Matt blinked. He’d had no idea Foggy had even noticed, let alone that it was bothering him.

Foggy rubbed at his forehead. “Seriously, buddy. Are you being reckless? Are all the criminals taking karate classes?”

“I don’t see why me bleeding is the issue you’re choosing to focus on.”

“I can’t lower the stakes of this case, I can’t turn Hayes and Johnston into minnows, and I can’t bring Karen back. You’re the only thing I can fix right now.”

It was a figure of speech, obviously. Matt focused on figuring out what Foggy really needed. Well, he kept saying it hurt him when Matt hurt. Matt still wasn’t exactly sure if being around Stone hurt him. But he was quite sure that Foggy would want to know regardless.

He breathed in a lungful of air that smelled of plants and a fountain somewhere and damp concrete. “Stone. The, uh, guy who attacked me. When you found me in that apartment? The guy Stick taught for ten years. He’s back.”

“Back?” Foggy echoed stupidly.

“I’m not actually sure he ever left. I called him accidentally—”

“How do you _accidentally_ call a ninja?”

“He got to my phone, Fogs. And he offered to teach me.”

Foggy was quiet for a moment. “Teach you what?” he asked finally. “Because that could mean a lot of things.”

“Knives,” Matt said. “Hence…” He gestured to himself.

Foggy was quiet for another, longer moment. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I told my mom,” Matt said hurriedly, choosing not to mention that he hadn’t told her immediately. Not even close. “I only had to tell one person if he came back, right? According to the list?”

Foggy sighed. “And you chose your mom. What, did you think I’d be upset?”

“…Aren’t you?”

“No, Matt, I just…” Foggy shifted slightly further away, though he didn’t pull his arm from Matt’s grasp as he led him down the path. “Never mind. So, you’re hanging out with Stone now. Cool. How’s that, uh, going?”

“Good. I think I’m getting under his skin.”

“What?” Foggy’s neck moved like he was doing a double take. “You’re antagonizing him on purpose?”

“No. Just when he says stupid things.”

“Oh, yeah, antagonize the guy who stabbed _and_ drugged you. Nice.”

“See,” Matt said pointedly. “You’re upset.”

“Because you’re an inherently upsetting person.”

“Objection. Calls for a legal conclusion.”

“That’s—that’s not a _legal conclusion_ , Matt.”

Matt grinned anyway, and if it looked forced, Foggy didn’t comment. “Seriously, buddy. That was good back there, with Ella. Rough, but good. And it’s over now.”

“True. Watch out—rock in the way.” Foggy led Matt a little to the left. “We just need to put all the depositions together and present the case to Main. I don’t see how he could possibly dismiss our motion for summary judgment in the face of all this evidence. We did it, buddy.”

Matt hummed thoughtfully. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Besides, her adoption isn’t certain yet.”

“Uh, no. But I’m just thankful she’ll be staying at Everett’s. I mean, it was way better than St. Agnes’ ever was, right?”

He spread his senses out, focusing on a bee buzzing around a flower. “Sure.”

“Matt?”

“No, you’re right,” he said evenly. Everett’s was far better than St. Agnes’ could’ve been, and not just because Everett’s existed in a different century and wasn’t run by strict nuns. Somehow, he couldn’t imagine Burnham or Alice ever letting Ella disappear with someone like Stick, someone who’d drop her off with bloody lips and sprained joints and broken bones.

But…Ella needed a family. Actual parents.

Which also meant she needed to stop acting out at Everett’s, which Matt of all people knew was vastly easier said than done.

For some reason, he didn’t really want to try to explain all that to Foggy, Foggy whose family was big enough to overflow just about any room they found themselves in.

Foggy was still talking. Something about filling out the forms for a restraining order against Kyle Conway. Which, Matt was sure, would make Conway furious. At least if Ella stayed at Everett’s, it would be harder for him to get to her. But if she were adopted, her new family would have to learn all about Conway.

It occurred to Matt, suddenly, that maybe the new family wouldn’t be thrilled about a violent sex offender chafing at any restriction to seeing his daughter.

His fingers tightened into fists, wishing he could just take care of the problem himself.

“Matt? You look angsty.”

“I do not look angsty.”

Foggy bumped him with his shoulder. “What’re you thinking about?”

“A bee.”

“Ah, yes. Are the bees still dying? I keep losing track of all the looming ecological disasters.”

Matt played along, and he actually managed to mostly relax. More importantly, Foggy managed to relax entirely. At least, as far as Matt could tell. It seemed like the worst was finally behind them.

That night, the world slipped in and out of focus along with his attention. It was almost nice, nice enough that he didn’t even worry when he heard Stone’s boots land on the roof behind him.

“You’re drunk,” Stone said immediately.

“Yep.” Matt tapped the glass bottle next to him. “Brought some for you.”

Stone sat beside him, close enough that Matt could feel his warmth. “I didn’t realize you took nights off.”

“I’m angry,” Matt informed him idly. “So I really shouldn’t go out. Probably shouldn’t train with you either.” He tipped his head to the side. “Maybe I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

Stone didn’t dignify that with an answer.

Matt took another sip. “We deposed Ella today.”

“You say that like I should know what it means.”

“Means we had to sit there while her mom’s attorney confused her and her dad’s attorney…her dad’s attorney ripped her apart.”

“Didn’t you stop it?”

Should’ve. Should’ve thought of something. “Not much we can do. Not in a deposition.”

“Well.” Stone removed the lid from his own bottle. “You could always pay them a visit later.”

“I can’t touch this case, Stone. Not as Daredevil. It would compromise the whole thing.”

“Only if they found out about your other life. So don’t let them find out.”

“S’not that simple. I already had to rescue Ella once—from your people,” he added, tightening his grip on the bottle’s neck. “Everyone knows it was Daredevil. Everett’s had to report it. So if Daredevil, y’know, did something to anyone on the other side, the judge could declare a mistrial. Throw the whole thing out.”

Stone drank deeply.

“You’re not gonna push it?” Matt asked curiously.

“Why bother? I can’t change your mind.”

“That never stopped Stick from trying.”

“Nothing ever did.”

Matt swirled the liquid around, listening to the small eddy that formed. “Her dad. He, uh…he’s a lot like Stick was. You know. With us.”

Stone tilted his head. “I thought you said he abuses her.”

“Right, yeah,” Matt stammered. “That’s my point.”

There was a moment of relative silence, like Stone was trying to figure out what Matt meant. Then he shook his head. “Tell me you don’t actually think that.”

“Under the law—”

“I don’t care what the law says. I get that it’s your thing, but that doesn’t mean anything to me. Do _you_ actually believe that Stick mistreated us?”

“He wasn’t looking out for us.”

Stone put his bottle aside. “What else would you call self-defense training?”

Matt remembered a park bench and an ice cream cone. _You’re gonna help me?_

_No. I’m gonna train you._

“That wasn’t _self-defense_ , Stone. He was turning us into soldiers.” He fidgeted with the bottle, wished there was more to drink. “Wasn’t for our sake—it was all for the mystical war.”

“It wasn’t mystical, which I’d think you’d know better than anyone. He wanted us to _survive_ it.”

“We wouldn’t be in danger if he hadn’t dragged us into it in the first place,” Matt snapped.

“You think that, Devil? You think when the Hand showed up here in Hell’s Kitchen that you could’ve stayed out of it, even without Stick’s training?”

No. “All right, all right. So say it was self-defense, then. It was still…too much.”

“Please. I know you better than that. It wasn’t _too hard_ —it was the only way to make us strong.”

“We were kids!” Matt turned his whole body towards so Stone so suddenly that he almost lost his balance. “We were kids and he made me pass out teaching me to get out of headlocks when other kids were learning to roller blade. He was testing how long I could go without sleep when he should’ve been helping the nightmares.” He knew, somewhere in his head, that he wouldn’t be spilling his guts like this if he weren’t drunk. But he was. So he didn’t stop. “He was teaching me that I couldn’t let anyone in when I needed to learn how to _trust_ people.”

“He also taught you how to walk to the bathroom without throwing up from the stench.”

Matt clenched his fists, felt his torn knuckles stretch over the bone. “He stole our childhood, Stone. He shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re drunk.” Stone’s voice turned dismissive.

“He made me into something I never wanted to be. Don’t tell me he didn’t do that to you.”

Stone jumped to his feet. “I’m fine as I am.”

Matt followed much more slowly. “C’mon, Stone. Don’t tell me you believe that.”

“I don’t wish for a different life.” His voice rose. “It was good. And it was worth it. It’s a pity you can’t accept that.”

“Stone—”

The bottle shattered when he threw it on the ground; alcohol soaked the air and bits of glass rained down. “I thought we shared the same objective, Devil. I thought we were working together to finish what Stick started.” He scoffed. “I was actually enjoying not having to fight you to make you into who you should be.”

Matt shook his head harder, felt dizzy. “No, wait. Leave my…leave my family alone.”

Stone’s voice was a hiss in his ear. “Make me.”

Listening to Stone’s footsteps recede, Matt picked a small shard of glass out of his cheek and tried to pray.

Foggy

Foggy hated being at the office so late. It made him think of law school, staying in the library until after midnight because he still had thirty pages of reading left to do before nine the next morning. Being his own boss _should_ mean setting his own hours.

But the thing about practicing law was that you were never your own boss. Not really. Your first priority was always to your clients.

At least, that was the kind of law Matt practiced.

And speak of the devil! The front door opened and Foggy heard the sound of Matt entering, which was to say he heard the sound of the door opening followed by nearly-silent footsteps. Weird, though; Matt should be out Daredeviling or something. Getting up, Foggy walked into the lobby. “What’re you doing back so—”

Matt wrapped his arms around him in a stiff embrace.

“Whoa.” Foggy automatically returned the hug. “Okay.”

Matt didn’t answer. If anything, he held on tighter.

“Okay,” Foggy repeated, awkwardly rubbing Matt’s back. “Are we okay, buddy? I’m not complaining here—seriously, zero complaints—but this isn’t exactly—”

The words were whispered in his ear. “Thank you, Foggy.”

“You’re welcome,” Foggy stammered. “You’re definitely always welcome. But, um…for what?”

Matt simply rested his chin on Foggy’s shoulder. “For not giving up on me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drunk!Matt is life. Fight me.


	9. Vengeance Just Can't Replace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends! Um, so I'm super excited about this chapter and also it's really cliff-hangery so I figured I'd post it early and update again tomorrow morning. That cool?
> 
> Trigger warnings: like, lots of blood

Matt

Two nights later, Matt hunted the streets for a legitimate outlet. They were _still_ waiting for the transcripts of Ella’s deposition so they could put together their renewed motion for summary judgment. It was a frustrating roadblock considering how much work it’d taken just to get to this point.

And a punching bag wasn’t very satisfying.

He took out a couple of low-level thugs. Nothing very challenging. At a little after one in the morning, however, he caught an unexpected combination of scents. Beer, sweat, cigarette smoke, some kind of cheese…and something akin to Ella’s sweeter aroma. Kyle Conway, out on the streets.

Matt gripped his batons and shook his head. Sheer temptation, that was all it was.

A bar fight broke out a few blocks away. Matt skipped over to check it out, but it wasn’t actually out of hand. He lingered in the shadows, wishing for valid distraction, but someone had called the cops; the fighters were separated; the night returned to relative calm.

And Kyle Conway was still out and about.

Gritting his teeth, Matt took to a taller rooftop, casting his senses farther. Hell’s Kitchen had chosen the worst possible night for quiescence. He listened to the cars, listened to sirens in the distance—nothing that needed his help.

“So the bitch wasn’t lying,” Conway said suddenly.

Matt tilted his head, refocused. Conway was no longer alone. He’d found two other people: Elizabeth Conway and a stranger.

“We’re _separated_ , Beth,” Conway growled, “not divorced.”

“She can do whatever she wants,” a new voice said. The boyfriend.

“That what you think, huh?”

“Stop,” Elizabeth said tremulously. “Jared, let’s go.”

“Are you _scared_ of me?” Conway demanded. “Is that what’s going on here? You were always such a coward, Beth. You wanna be scared? I’ll give you a reason.”

A switchblade.

Matt took off at a run. He could practically taste Elizabeth’s terror. Jared stepped in front of her, giving her the chance to dart away, and Conway lunged. There was a scraping sound as Jared grabbed something metal—a pipe or a rod?—to block Conway’s strike.

They were gonna tear each other apart.

Matt flipped down behind Conway, heard the jolt of Jared’s surprise in his heartbeat. Conway didn’t notice; he lashed out with the knife again, this time catching Jared in the shoulder. Copper joined the tang of fear in the air. Elizabeth fled.

“Hey!” Matt shouted. Conway whipped around and Jared took the chance to swing his metal rod straight at Conway’s head. Matt rolled forward, kicked Conway out of the way, and blocked Jared’s strike with one hand on his bicep and the other at his wrist.

The arm broke; the rod hit the ground with a ringing sound amidst Jared’s curses.

Matt punched him in the temple and Jared fell limply, landing on his mangled arm and breaking it in a second place. Matt couldn’t really muster up any sympathy. That blow would’ve killed Conway had it landed.

Conway stood still but not calmly. His heart was like a battering ram behind his ribcage.

Matt turned slowly to face him. “Get out of here.”

Conway spewed profanity in return.

Matt gritted his teeth and remained planted in front of Jared, lest Conway try for revenge. “Leave.”

Well, Conway clearly didn’t appreciate being bossed around. He took two steps closer and struck out with the knife. A quick parry, a twist of his wrist, and the knife landed on the ground. Matt shoved him backwards with no small amount of satisfaction.

Conway was bigger than Matt and he hadn’t lied when he said he worked out. He just didn’t know how to fight.

Or when to quit when it was good for him. See, he was already lumbering back towards Matt, this time to throw a punch. Matt dodged, swiped his legs out from under him, and kicked him again when he landed on his back. “Stay down,” he ordered as Conway struggled back to his feet. A punch to the throat dropped him to the ground again. “Stay _down_.”

But Matt only managed two steps in the other direction before he heard Conway staggering upright again. He whipped around as Conway grabbed the pipe. The swing was wide and sloppy. Matt disarmed him, throwing the rod aside and grabbing Conway by the lapels. His rank breath struck Matt in the face. “Don’t try that again.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Conway’s blood pressure skyrocketed.

“Shut up.” Matt kicked his knee out and Conway hit the ground with a thud once more. But this time, a sinister sound stopped Matt from walking away. The scrape of metal on pavement.

Conway had recovered his knife.

Now Matt couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. The man was armed and raging and Jared was still unconscious. Matt turned on his heel, every sense locked onto his target. And who could fault him for letting the devil out?

Conway’s heart pounded with fear and rage. Matt blocked the first strike and punched Conway’s gut. _This is for Ella._ His fist caught Conway under the chin, snapping his head back. _For all the other kids you’ve hurt._ Then he grabbed Conway’s wrist and twisted it behind his back, doubling him over, just like Stick liked to do. _For all the kids people like you have ever hurt._

Spitting blood, Conway wrenched himself forward with a sickening pop. Snarling, he spun, stabbing blindly forward. Matt parried and struck the tendons on his wrist with his other hand. Conway’s fingers sprang apart. Matt caught the knife, spun it once, and sliced a shallow line across Conway’s chest. “I said _stay down_.”

Screaming, Conway curled over the wound, heart beating even more rapidly.

Matt wanted nothing more than to leave, get the smell of Conway’s breath and sweat out of his nose. But Matt couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t try to get up again, either to escape or to finish attacking Jared. Also, Conway was bleeding through his torn shirt…more than he should’ve been. Matt pulled out his phone, but he was so angry he missed the right button the first time he tried to dial 9-11.

“I’d like to report an assault.” _Of the third degree_ , his brain added helpfully. _New York Penal Law one-twenty._ He gave his head a shake and realized he’d missed whatever the operator had said. “What?”

“I said, is anyone hurt?”

“Two people. They need an ambulance.”

“Location?”

He didn’t actually know and couldn’t exactly see any street signs nearby. “By the overpass. In the alley behind the Panda Express.” Then he hung up before the operator could ask any more questions.

If he left now, he didn’t know what Conway would try to do. The man stank of so much fear that anything seemed possible. Wonderful. So Matt sat on the ground, resolving to wait just until he knew the ambulance was on its way, and distracted himself listening to the city. Foggy would be endlessly amused to learn about this less glamorous part of Daredeviling. Matt tried to guess which ambulance had been dispatched his location. But Conway wouldn’t stop whimpering, dragging Matt’s attention back, forcing Matt to listen to the blood flowing from the cut on his chest. It wasn’t even that deep. It was just…still bleeding. Matt clenched his jaw. He should put pressure on the wound. Conway was…Matt tilted his head.

He was bleeding out?

Matt lurched forward, eyes wide under his mask. The blood wasn’t clotting. “Conway?”

No answer.

“Conway!” Matt scrambled over, sliding onto his knees. The fabric of his pants moistened with warmth where he rammed into Conway’s side. “What’s wrong with you? Talk to me!”

He was unconscious, breathing rapid and shallow even as his adrenaline levels shot up, the body fighting to keep itself alive.

Furious, Matt ripped off his mask, balled it up, and pressed it to Conway’s chest. “Oh, come _on_.” Blood soaked through the mask. “Come on!” Too much hot blood. His heart still beat too fast, every pulse driving more of the life from his body.

No. _No no no_.

The mask was saturated. Matt swore, yanking off his shirt, trying to smother the wound, straining his ears for the sound of an ambulance. “C’mon, c’mon— _God_.” He pressed his fingers to Conway’s neck; the pulse fluttered weakly beneath skin that was growing colder second by second. “C’mon, c’mon!”

This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening.

The pulse flickered out.

Stillness.

Hollow, Matt sat back on his heels, listening to the blood still oozing, now sluggish, from the long line of split skin. The sounds of the city rushed in to replace the signs of life he’d been fighting so hard to hear. Sirens, people laughing, horns honking. At some point, Matt realized his hands were trembling. It took another minute or so to realize that the shaking was at least partly due to the fact that he was shivering, sitting on the pavement without a shirt.

It didn’t matter. His gloves were tacky with blood and where there should’ve been a heartbeat, he heard only silence.

Stone

The Devil sat motionless as the ambulances drew closer, until Stone was sure the siren must be stabbing directly into his brain through his hypersensitive ears. Only when he was about to be caught did he get up, carefully collecting mask and shirt, and slip into the night.

Stone wasn’t sure what to make of this. That the Devil had finally crossed the line to become a true soldier was cause for celebration, his frantic efforts to revive his opponent notwithstanding. If there was one thing he’d learned about Matty (and he’d learned many things), it was that guilt ate him alive like a parasite in his gut. A guilt-ridden soldier was hardly ideal, but far better than an idealistic lawyer who occasionally put on a mask.

And his precious friends, they wouldn’t understand. The fat lawyer didn’t have the stomach for it. The girlfriend? She was a harder read. Possibly she wouldn’t be so easy to push away. Then again, the Devil would be motivated by the deepest loathing. What kind of affection could stand up to that?

It wasn’t the way Stone would have set things up. But this was probably better. Anything Stone might do to frighten his friends off wouldn’t have the same insidious power as the Devil’s own autonomous decision to sever himself from their lives. Which he would. He’d already hidden Stone’s mere presence in his life for so long, but this? Becoming a murderer? He could try to keep it a secret, but the first murder always spread. Murder wasn’t just a single decision. It was a force, killing the old life and resurrecting a new one. If the Devil wanted to keep his friends away from the murder, he’d have to keep them away from himself.

Still. A small push, in just the right place, wouldn’t hurt.

Not to the girlfriend, though. Stone got the idea that she’d shoot him as soon as look at him and, well, Stone had things to do still (though if it came down to it, he could think of far worse fates than death by her hands). The fat friend was also an option, but if Stone read Matty well, he understood that the two law partners had already had this fight, at a theoretical level. Possibly multiple times. No, now that the fear had been realized, better to let the Devil cut himself away without Stone inserting himself into the mix, upsetting the balance that was already set to tip towards the Devil’s freedom.

The little girl, however.

Stone retraced the familiar path to the children’s home. It was no longer raucous, as it always was during the day. He listened carefully, breathing in, but for all Stick’s training, he couldn’t manage to pinpoint a single child in a building that was teeming with them. Stick would’ve been disappointed.

It occurred to him that Matty would probably be neither disappointed nor disdainful.

He let himself in through a poorly-latched window and made his way up and down the halls, following the trails of the Devil’s scent. If the Devil been trying to mark the territory, he’d done a thorough job. Made it that much harder to track down the girl’s room. But Stone succeeded eventually. He always did.

She was cute. Small, with soft skin that would be so, so easy to cut open. Would she bleed out as easily as her daddy? Either way, she was a deadly distraction. She was, for now, also asleep, though not peacefully. It wasn’t hard to wake her, and even easier to slap a hand across her mouth, smothering her scream.

“Shhh.” He crouched over her bed. “Hush now. I’m a friend.”

Her eyes were wide with panic. She tried to jerk backwards, but his other hand pressed into her back, holding her firmly in place.

“Shh. Mr. Murdock sent me. Matthew? Matty?”

She calmed, but only slightly. She no longer strained against him, but her eyes were still circles of panic.

“I’ll take my hand off your mouth in a moment. I just need to tell you something, all right? Matthew wanted me to tell you something.”

She made a soft sound against his hand, a sound that turned into a single word once he removed it. “Matt?”

“Shh. He’s busy right now, but he wants you to know what happened tonight. He’s really sorry, Bella.”

“My name’s Elizabeth,” she corrected suspiciously. “Who are you?”

“Matt and I are friends. Do you remember how he rescued you from the bad guys? I help him do that kind of thing. I was helping him tonight. He got into a fight. It was pretty ugly.”

Her eyes flashed. “Foggy says he fights to help people.”

“That he does, Elizabeth. Usually, at least.” He stroked her cheek; she was rigid under his touch. “Tonight didn’t go so well. See, your dad was out, and Matt was angry. You’ve seen how angry Matt can get, haven’t you?”

“What happened?”

“Your dad tried to get away, but Matt killed him.” Stone put a finger over her lips at the sound of her quiet gasp. “He killed him just for you, Elizabeth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to LikeHeroesWhoHaveToTrain for making me think harder about how evil Stone could be, thus inspiring literally the entire last half of this chapter.


	10. The Blood of My Enemies

Matt

He should get help. Except he wasn’t really injured.

He should talk to someone.

Holding his shirt and mask in a bloody bundle against his chest, Matt stuck to the roofs as he made his way back to his apartment where he stripped off the rest of his clothes, keeping his thoughts carefully blank. Still mindless, he entered the shower and focused all his attention on feeling each individual drop of water. He brushed his teeth and dressed in his softest sweats and, on the way to bed, double-checked that there were no new messages on either of his phones.

If someone had reached out, he would answer. He’d tell them. But he didn’t really expect any communication at three in the morning and he wasn’t disappointed.

He could talk about it tomorrow.

He got into bed and didn’t sleep.

His whole apartment smelled like blood.

So did he.

The walk to work felt the same as it had ever since they’d gotten the new place. Shouldn’t it feel different now?

The office was empty when he arrived. He didn’t even really know what time it was, but it was early. Matt let himself in, didn’t lock the door, and sat down at his desk. He shouldn’t work on Ella’s case. Couldn’t? Shouldn't. The Sanford case, though. Karen made a lot of progress on that. Informal discovery, connecting dots, so they’d been able to ask for precisely what they needed with their document requests. Which meant there was plenty of material for Matt to go through.

He put in his earbuds and lost himself to a world of tedious facts that slipped into his brain and disappeared.

There was a motion right in front of his face.

He jerked back; Foggy was standing over his desk, snapping his finger or something in front of Matt’s nose. “What?”

“Did you seriously not hear me come in?”

Now that he was concentrating, he could indeed hear Foggy’s voice over the buzzing from his headphones. Matt slipped the earbuds out. “What?”

Foggy leaned closer until Matt could smell a hint of sausage on his breath, almost smothered under toothpaste but not quite. “You okay, buddy?”

There was no possible answer to that question. “I’m working.”

“Yeah,” Foggy said slowly. “I can see that. You look weird.”

 _I wouldn’t know_. The words were on the tip of his tongue, or maybe buried somewhere in the back of his brain. Either way, Matt couldn’t get them out.

“Did you sleep last night?”

“I have an actual mother, you know.”

Foggy backed up a bit. “Yeah, sorry. I’m hovering. You just…seriously, Matt, you look like death.”

His heart skipped a beat, but Foggy couldn’t hear it. Foggy couldn’t hear heartbeats.

“Well, I’m gonna go see what I can do with piecing all those depositions together.” He snorted. “I still can’t believe you got Ella to testify about Daredevil under everyone’s noses. That was ballsy, man. The truth and nothing but the truth, I guess. Although you kinda left out the whole truth part.”

Please, please, stop talking.

“Oh, and let the record reflect that if she ends up committing perjury later on because of the highly unethical example you set, that’s on you. My hands are clean of this, Murdock.” Foggy mimed a wiping motion. “Geeze, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, buddy. Focusing.”

“If you say so. Shout if you need something.”

Matt nodded and didn’t really breathe until Foggy left.

The office was quiet. Had been for hours, probably. Matt wasn’t tracking anything coming from his headphones anymore, so he took out the earbuds and leaned back in his chair, wishing he could stare at the ceiling instead of nothing.

Then he heard Foggy breathing unsteadily on the other side of his doorway, just behind the wall. As if he could hide there. How long had he been standing there? Did he realize Matt hadn’t been working, hadn’t gotten a single thing done, had wasted the entire morning?

But he didn’t sound annoyed. He sounded…nervous.

Why?

Matt felt suddenly trapped. He couldn’t sit there for one more minute, but he couldn’t leave without getting past Foggy. Compromising, he stood up and kind of paced from one side of the small room to the other.

A tiny, reluctant knock on his doorway. “Matt?” Foggy asked shakily.

Matt halted instantly. “What?”

“Can we talk?”

“What’s wrong?”

Foggy swallowed. “Look, I think maybe we should sit down for this.”

Matt heard his own pulse thundering in his ears. “What’s wrong?”

“Please, Matt. Could you maybe come out of your office for a second?”

Matt moved on autopilot, past his friend to stand in the middle of the lobby, but that felt weird, just standing there. The desk still smelled like Karen, so he sat on its edge. Except it smelled too much like Karen and she wasn’t even here and he missed her. Sitting at her desk had been a bad idea. But it was too late to move now, with Foggy watching him like a worried hawk.

“Okay,” Foggy began. “So. Just got a call from Brett.”

Matt kept his face angled towards the floor.

“Someone brought Mr. Conway in. Uh…he’s dead.”

Matt gave a small nod.

Silence for a moment. Then Foggy’s breathing hitched. “You already knew that.”

Another nod.

“Yeah. So, Brett said he’d been, uh, stabbed. Or something. Apparently he’s a hemophiliac which…yeah. Guess that explains Ella’s thing with blood, right? But he also had a lot of the types of injuries they associate with Daredevil, so…were you there when it happened?”

Was he _there_.

Nod.

“Okay, buddy, I don’t even know if this is a valid referent for you anymore, but you’re white as a sheet. Can you tell me what happened?”

Matt shook his head, just to spice things up.

“No, you can’t? Or no, you won’t?”

He finally forced his mouth open. “Does that matter?”

Foggy’s heartrate increased and Matt was sick, _sick_ , of listening to hearts. “I’m thinking it does, especially now that you say it like that. Matt, I’m not gonna lie, I’m really worried right now.”

He closed his eyes. “Yeah, Foggy. I was there. The ambulance was too late.”

“What about the other guy? Elizabeth said he’s her boyfriend.”

“He’s fine. Broken arm.”

“Hey, look. You did the best you could, buddy. You can’t save everyone.” Foggy hesitated. “I’m gonna hug you right now, all right?”

Because _oh_ , Foggy thought the boyfriend had wielded the knife. A fair assumption. It wasn’t like Daredevil was known for knife fights. But now Foggy was coming closer, now his arms were wrapping around Matt, enveloping Matt in his warmth, and Matt didn’t even have to pay attention to sitting upright because he could just sort of fall against Foggy and…and he did not deserve this.

Once Foggy learned the truth, Matt couldn’t expect to feel his embrace again. It was selfish and cowardly and it felt strangely like taking advantage of his best friend, but for now, Matt just let Foggy hold him.

“I’m sorry,” Foggy whispered in his ear. “I’m so sorry. I can’t…I can’t imagine. Really.”

Matt stayed very still and Foggy kept talking, saying nothing important, just kind words, and Matt wanted to drown himself in each unearned kindness.

“Okay,” Foggy said about half a year later. “My back’s kind of cramping and you…I’m about eighty percent sure you haven’t fallen into a coma, but I’m also betting you’re kind of stuck inside your own head right now. Let me help pull you out of it, all right?”

Matt got the hint. He sat back, let Foggy detach himself.

“Have you eaten?”

“Yeah.” Lie, but the mere thought of food made his stomach twist violently. Besides, Foggy couldn’t hear heartbeats. Foggy would never hear the lie in someone’s pulse, and he’d never sit next to someone in the middle of an alley, listening to the heart speed up. Slow down. Stop.

“Okay. Do you wanna work in my office with me?”

“…What?”

“We’re working together today, buddy. I’ve declared today Work Beside Your Best Friend Day. So, where do you wanna work?”

“I don’t care, Foggy.”

“Great. You know what? Let’s stay out here. There’s more space and we’re closer to the kitchen. Go get your stuff.”

Matt followed orders, collecting his screen-reader and brail display and headphones and…it all seemed like an unnecessary amount of equipment. But he unplugged everything and gathered it up and took it into the lobby where Foggy was spreading papers out on the floor.

“Cool. Now, what do you want to work on? The Sanford case? That sounds fun and distracting.”

“We need to figure out what to do for Ella.” The words came out before he could think better of it, before he could stop himself.

“Are you sure, man? Brett said he already called Everett’s, so everyone there is gonna take care of her. We can give it some time before we get involved.”

Foggy didn’t understand. “No, we…we need to take care of the case.”

“The case is fine, Matt. I mean, this kind of simplifies things, actually. And, wow, that sounds horrible. Don’t tell anyone I said that. But now the only defendant we have to worry about is the mother, so—”

“It doesn’t simplify things,” Matt interrupted desperately. “Everything’s more complicated now.”

“…It is?”

If Ella weren’t involved, maybe he’d take this secret to his grave. But of all the things he might risk, he wasn’t prepared to risk her. The boyfriend was still alive. The police would question him, figure out Conway hadn’t been stabbed yet before Jared lost consciousness. Meaning someone else must have used the knife. And Jared had seen Daredevil. Someone would put it together, that a vigilante was favoring one side of the case because the same vigilante that had rescued Ella had also k—Matt swallowed. “Foggy, I—I wasn’t—”

“What?”

“I—I wasn’t j-just there, I—I—I—”

Foggy grabbed Matt’s arms, which he couldn’t really feel. “Matt, _breathe_. You’re hyperventilating.”

He was? Matt closed his eyes, tethered his senses to Foggy’s warmth and breathing and his steady—no, Matt couldn’t do heartbeats, not anymore. He switched his attention away. He was sitting down—when did that happen?—so he focused on the feel of the painful industrial carpet, the smell of spilled Dorito powder that could never be vacuumed up, the vibrations of someone walking in the next office over. Slowly, the numbness in his extremities faded and his lungs stopped straining for air.

“There,” Foggy said softly. “Take your time, all right? We don’t have to do anything right now.”

“It was me,” Matt whispered. “I killed him.”

Foggy made an uneasy sound, a strangled, startled laugh. “What?”

“It was his knife, but I…he was disarmed, I had it, and I just…I didn’t…he was bleeding so much and I called the ambulance and it didn’t get there in t-time…”

Foggy pulled away, leaving Matt unbearably cold where his hands had been touching him.

“The blood, it wouldn’t stop, and I heard it.” Matt snapped his mouth closed against whatever was welling up in his chest, against the memory of the last heartbeats, against the slick feeling of hot blood cooling fast between his fingers. This wasn’t about him and his horror.

This wasn’t about him.

He took a deep breath. “I’m just…I’m just telling you this because. Because Ella. Because D—” The name caught in his throat. “Daredevil saved her once and I know Burnham reported it and now…now Daredevil k-k-k—” Matt gritted his teeth together, sucked in a deeper breath. “He killed her dad. The case is tainted and Foggy, I’m _so sorry_.”

Foggy reached for him again, but Matt flinched away, stood up. “Matthew.”

“I can’t—I’m gonna go to the station, see what…see what the report says, see if—”

Foggy was on his feet in a flash, standing in front of the door with a hand against Matt’s chest. “Don’t you dare.”

“Fogs, let me go, let me—”

“Matthew Murdock, _I will fight you_.”

Matt froze.

“You’re not going anywhere near the police station right now. You witnessed something terrible last night—”

 _Witnessed_.

“—and I’m betting you haven’t slept or eaten since. So no, I don’t really trust you to be around law enforcement right now. We’re staying put and I’m ordering in. What sounds good? Thai?”

“No, I can’t, I’m…” Cold trickled through him and his balance sort of disappeared. “I’m gonna throw up.”

Foggy dove for the nearest trash can, thrusting it at Matt as he doubled over to vomit up bile and whatever he’d had for dinner so long ago. As if from very far away, Matt felt Foggy rubbing circles against his back, saying more nonsense things.

Even when there was nothing left in his stomach, Matt stayed slumped over the can. He didn’t want to sit back. Stand up. Face reality. He only moved when he heard Foggy dialing a phone number. He found the sink, filled a mug with water, rinsed, and spit. It wouldn’t get the taste out of his mouth, not really. But it was what you were supposed to do.

Foggy hung up. “Maggie’s on her way. We just need to camp out here for a bit longer.”

Matt dropped the mug and the ceramic shattered. “You called my mom?”

“Your mom who also happens to be a nun because, frankly, this is way beyond my area of expertise. No, _don’t_.” Foggy moved to block Matt again. “Don’t bolt, Matt. Just stay here and let us take care of you.”

Why…why was he being so kind?

Matt half-pushed against him, but Foggy stood firm and Matt was too tired (conflicted) to try any harder. Giving up, he took a long step back and sank to the floor, leaning his head against a cupboard. “What did you tell her, Foggy?”

“I told her you need her.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, you do and she’s coming, so do you…” Foggy hesitated. “Do you want me to tell her?”

“No,” Matt said quickly. “No, no, I can do it.” After all, Foggy hadn’t been there. He didn’t know what actually happened. He’d probably try to make it sound better. Although that didn’t seem possible. “I’ll do it.”

“You sure buddy?”

Matt closed his eyes. Wished that made a difference. Wished he could shut out Foggy’s concern because he didn’t deserve it and because it would be so much worse when Foggy’s brain caught up to his heart and he realized what Matt really was. “Yeah. I’m sure.”


	11. I Can't and I Don't Believe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple things: first off, you all are so incredible and I promise I'll get to your comments soon. I've been reading them and getting way too much inspiration from them and also this story is now 16 chapters (your fault) because tbh I think this fandom deserves some wholesome resolution so I'm gonna do my best to wrap everything up.
> 
> However, before we get there, it's gonna be bumpy. This is the chapter that justifies the suicide warning. If you want to skip that part, just don't read Matt's POV at the end. (Because of course it's Matt. Sorry, Matt.) This is another cliff hanger too, so I'll try to get the next chapter up first thing tomorrow.
> 
> SWEET ECCHO DON'T LOOK AT THIS JUST DO YOUR MATH YOU GOT THIS CRUSH THAT TEST.

Matt

Maggie was already tense when she walked in, tense from whatever Foggy had told her to get her to drop whatever else she was doing and come here. She’d never been in the office before, and the scent of her here, in this setting, threw Matt off. She crossed the threshold and made a low sound, then went to pick up the trash can.

Matt forced his tongue to remember words. “Mom, don’t…”

“Nonsense.” She carried it outside.

“Hey,” Foggy said in his ear, and Matt kind of jumped because he’d been so focused on tracking Maggie. “Let her take care of you, remember?”

He couldn’t summon the energy to shake his head.

Maggie returned a moment later without the can, walked straight towards Matt, and embraced him. He tried to accept it. He _really_ did. But he was aware, vaguely, that he hadn’t moved at all. He was a stone statue in her warm arms.

“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Foggy said awkwardly, and kind of shuffled backwards into his office.

“You don’t think he’ll listen in?” Maggie asked mildly.

Didn’t matter. Matt shrugged.

“What happened, child?”

“Um.” He slowly maneuvered himself out of her embrace. “I…I made a mistake.”

She put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a little push into one of the chairs in front of Karen’s desk. Then she settled herself on the edge of the desk, close enough to rest her leg against his and run her hand through his hair.

He didn’t deserve any tenderness. He didn’t lean into the touch. Closing his eyes, he expanded his awareness outwards. Someone was making a sandwich in the next office. Matt tied his senses to the casual, predictable process and let the story slip out of his mouth. He did note, as if through a haze, that she never stopped touching him. Not once. Her heartbeat (he couldn’t help but hear it) sounded like Father Lantom’s always used to: calm, no matter what horrible thing Matt confessed.

“I’m sorry, Matthew,” she said when it was over.

That didn’t make any sense.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

As if it wasn’t his fault.

She kept talking in a low, soothing voice. “I know you didn’t want that. You didn’t know he would bleed out, so it’s not your—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he bit out, taking vindictive pleasure at interrupting her because he’d been _waiting_ for someone outside of his own head to make that argument. He broke free of her touch entirely, stood a couple feet away as if she were in the jury box and he stood in the well of a courtroom. “There’s this legal doctrine, the eggshell plaintiff rule. Means if you hurt someone, but it’s made worse because there’s something else wrong with them, it doesn’t matter. You’re still responsible. Like if you knock someone over and rebreak a bone that was still healing, or you make someone panic and they already have a heart condition. It doesn’t matter that the harm is enhanced.” He paused. “You still did it.”

She was quiet for a moment. “And that’s what you think happened here?”

His lips moved into a smile. “Hemophilia is textbook.”

“Hmm.” She perched on the edge of Karen’s desk, hands in her lap. Probably studying him. “Is that what you’re worried about? The legal side of this?”

Unfair of her to cut to the heart of things like that. But if she wanted to try, he wasn’t going to help her out.

“Because I’ve never known you to be particularly concerned with illegality,” she went on.

“You’ve _known me_ for less than a year.”

If she could cut to the heart, so could he.

He hoped Foggy was listening in, was half tempted to call Foggy in just to witness every hateful word. Because both of them, Maggie and Foggy, were gonna leave. Better it happen now, while he was still numb to the idea. While he could still convince himself it was better.

“That’s true,” she said evenly, “but I think the fact that you fight crime dressed like a devil is more than enough proof that what matters to you is not what the law says.”

Now he was yelling. “I’ve dedicated my _life_ to the law! You just don’t know that because the first time you talked to me was after I’d been crushed by a building. You never cared before then, never managed to walk _nine blocks_ to visit me, never bothered to tell me who you were when I was screaming from _nightmares_ and you were holding my _hand_.” His own breathing was loud and harsh in his ears. “Did you even know I was an attorney, _Maggie_ , or did Father Lantom have to tell you? Maybe you got me a card for graduation but you were too much of a coward to send it!”

She said his name.

“Don’t,” he snarled. “Don’t pretend you know anything about my life.”

“Are you going to leave?”

“…What?”

“Door’s behind you.”

He…he knew that. “What?”

“Because I’m not,” she said bluntly. “So if you want me out of your life, you can just turn around and walk out. I’m not going anywhere.”

He wet his lips. He should. He should just leave. Find an actual punching bag, not her. “It’s my office,” he managed to say instead.

“And I’m not leaving.”

Fine. He wasn’t going to throw her out. Because Foggy wouldn’t let him. Backing into the corner, he slid down the wall to the floor with his knees against his chest.

After a moment, she slipped off the desk and stopped a safe distance away to kneel in front of him. If she were any bigger, or any closer, he would’ve felt trapped.

“Mom,” he whispered. “Mom, am I damned?”

She stretched out her arm. Couldn’t reach any part of him except his shoe. But she placed her hand there so he could feel her warmth through the leather. “God is in the business of redemption.”

That sounded very Catholic and also not Catholic at all.

Foggy

It was really uncomfortable in his office. He almost never worked with the door closed, and all the paperwork in the world wasn’t enough to distract him from the very one-sided shouting match going down in the lobby. Foggy kept score on a piece of scrap paper.

Point to Matt.

Point to Matt.

Point to Matt.

It was a bloodbath.

Oh, but Maggie wasn’t tapping out. She’d still be on her feet when she lost, that was for sure.

The shouting died down, but no one saw fit to let Foggy know whether he could come out of his self-imposed prison. He heard muffled words and for all he knew, there was some lifechanging conversation going on that he didn’t dare interrupt. He played on his phone and tried to ignore texts from Karen, offensive in their very normalcy. He wondered if Matt would tell her.

Eventually, though, he had no choice but to leave. He shouldn’t have started the day with so much coffee, because now his bladder was killing him and this was gonna be the most awkward bathroom break in the history of bathroom breaks.

Slowly, he cracked the door open. Matt had tucked himself into the corner; Maggie sat beside him. Her hand was on his knee. A window was open, but the room still smelled like vomit.

“Hi, guys,” Foggy mumbled. “I’m just, um…” He scuttled into the bathroom. A minute or so later, he popped his head back out. “Do either of you need anything?”

Maggie’s face suggested that she needed a whole lot of things at the moment. Matt had his I-need-nothing-except-alcohol-and-maybe-a-blood-transfusion face.

“We’re fine,” Maggie said.

“You’re hungry,” Matt countered flatly. “You should get something to eat.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

He knocked his head back against the wall. “ _Fine_. If you get yourself lunch, I swear I won’t make it into some big thing like you abandoned me. Okay? Please go eat.”

Oh. So they’d had the whole abandonment talk. Good?

She kissed his forehead, a tender gesture that earned no response whatsoever. “I’ll hold you to that.” Foggy offered her a hand, which she ignored as she stood. “Do you have things to do, or can you keep an eye on him?”

Foggy risked a glance at Matt, but he wasn’t protesting the babysitting discussion taking place above his head. That was either a very good sign or a very, very bad one. “I’ll be here.”

Maggie gave him a lingering look that kind of scared him. “Good.” She faltered for a moment, as if still second-guessing her decision to leave Matt for even an instant, before finding the door.

Exhaling slowly, Foggy sat down next to Matt, not quite touching. “I like your mom,” he offered, for lack of anything better to say.

No answer.

“I guess you don’t wanna talk right now, huh?”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Because talking would do so much good.”

“Look, I’m just gonna say this. Because you need to hear it. I still…” Foggy’s throat tightened. Stupid emotion. “I still love you, man.”

Absolutely no reaction.

“And I get it,” Foggy insisted, which was a bald-faced lie. “You didn’t mean to kill him.”

Matt’s jaw ticked.

“He’s a hemophiliac. You had no way to know. Anyone else would’ve survived.”

“And, what, you think that lets me off the hook?” Matt’s mouth twisted. “It’s the eggshell plaintiff.”

Because of _course_ he would go there. “It’s absolutely not.”

“It is, Foggy. I shouldn’t have—it doesn’t matter that he—”

“Matt, that’s a legal doctrine! You’re not on trial! No one is prosecuting you!”

Matt’s eyes hardened. Because this was Matthew Murdock. He was prosecuting himself.

“Even if you were on trial,” Foggy argued, “that’s a civil law issue. This—” He cut himself off and wished he could rip out his tongue.

“Is criminal?” Matt finished harshly.

“You’re not a criminal. I mean…I mean, yeah, you are, but because of…not because of _this_ ,” he said helplessly. Why was he now so bad at _talking_?

“Voluntary manslaughter.” Matt’s voice shook. “At best. New York Penal Code one-twenty-five.”

Foggy wanted to cover his ears. “Stop. Stop, Matt.”

“ _You_ were the one,” he hissed, sitting up straighter in his corner. “When I told you I wanted to kill Fisk the first time, after we lost Elena, you were furious. And when I wanted to kill Fisk again, after Midland Circle, you were horrified. What’s the difference here?”

That—could he really not see that? “All that was coldblooded. This was an _accident_.”

His eyes lit up with a horrible gleam. “I was angry, Foggy. I was furious with Conway for hurting Ella and for trying to fight me and all of a sudden, I was angry at him just for existing. So.”

A very small part of Foggy wanted to believe him, let him win this fight. Because the harder Foggy fought to convince Matt (and himself) that Matt wasn’t a true murderer, the more it would hurt if…if Foggy turned out to be wrong. And the fact was, Foggy _hadn’t_ been there. Had no idea what Matt had or hadn’t done, much less what had been going through his best friend’s head.

Facts were facts and the facts as he knew them didn’t rule out the possibility that Matt had, in fact, wanted this.

And if he _had_ ….

 _Seven times._ He blinked at the memory of Karen’s tearstained face, shadows under dim lighting. _Because I wanted him dead._

Foggy stared at Matt, the blankness of his features and the tension in his jaw.

_I want you to tell me that I’m a bad person._

He’d believed the best with Karen. Oh, because she’d been crying? Whereas there was no trace of weakness on Matt’s face. What, did Foggy really need his friend to break under the weight of what he’d done before Foggy could offer forgiveness?

“Matthew.”

Matt was already shaking his head.

“Look, it doesn’t—” He couldn’t say it didn’t matter. It _did_ matter. Just not in terms of forgiveness. “I forgive you anyway, okay?”

Matt didn’t seem to notice that his lower lip was trembling.

“I just needed to say that before I ask these questions, because I want you to know that your answers won’t change what I just said. I forgive you, Matthew. Got it?”

“Got it,” he whispered. Whether he believed it was another matter.

“Okay.” Foggy gathered himself for what was about to be the hardest examination he’d ever done, and not just because his witness was intent on self-destruction. “Maybe you could tell me more about what happened.”

“To what end?”

“Were you glad when he was dead?”

“No,” Matt said quickly. Certainly.

“Okay.” Foggy cleared his throat. Once, twice. “You said it was his knife? Was he attacking you?”

“He was attacking Elizabeth’s boyfriend.”

“And you, what, intervened?”

Nod.

“Right, and _then_ he was attacking you?”

Matt rolled his eyes like it couldn’t possibly make a difference, which Foggy took as an affirmative, though he knew better than to go around waving the you-acted-in-self-defense flag. Matt would just try to shred it.

“All right. Now, I know hemophiliacs can, um, bleed out pretty quickly. How…uh, how long did it take?”

Matt’s hand gripped at the thin carpet. “Not long.”

“What did you do? After, you know. After he was cut.”

“Called an ambulance. He was bleeding. The boyfriend had a broken arm.”

See, Matt? Murderers didn’t call ambulances. Well, Foggy was pretty sure they didn’t. Still, he didn’t point it out. “And then what?”

“I had to stay. In case C-Conway tried to get up. Hurt Jared. Hurt himself.”

Right. Because Matt had still cared, in that moment, about Conway’s continued existence. Foggy risked an approving nod, which Matt either didn’t notice or ignored. “And you realized he was bleeding out. What then? Did you…” He couldn’t help the way his voice pitched upward hopefully. “Did you try to stop the—”

Matt was on his feet. “Can we not—can we not do this?”

“Do what?” He was pushing too hard. As always.

“I can’t.” Matt vanished into his office, reappeared with his glasses. A shield. “Thanks. Sorry.” Then he grabbed his cane.

Oh. Oh, no, not a shield. He was leaving. Bolting. “Matt—”

Foggy was too slow. The guy was a ninja and the door was already slamming shut.

Matt

Stick wasn’t the problem. Conway wasn’t the problem. They were both just…just people, people with their own histories that were probably piled high with experiences far worse than anything Matt had ever gone through. And what they’d done, yeah, it was wrong. And the fact was, the consequences of their decisions would keep rippling out. Forever. Touching other people, hurting other people.

But Stick and Conway…they were just two faces in a sea of faces, equally deserving of wrath and equally desperate for redemption.

They weren’t the problem.

Matt was.

His phone kept ringing. “Foggy, Foggy, Foggy.” Eventually it switched to “Mom, Mom, Mom.” He turned it off.

He traded his work suit for sweats and a t-shirt. No need to go out again today. Shouldn’t go out again tonight.

_How many men have you killed protecting this city?_

Well.

He knew better. He’d been angry. He shouldn’t have used a knife while he was angry. He knew better.

And he was _still_ angry. Angry at a dead man. Angry at three dead men, now. Conway for hurting Ella. Stick for hurting him. His own father for _dying_.

It wasn’t going to go away.

But wasn’t that just life? People got older and all the pain they’d endured built up and all the regrets they carried got heavier until it just…until it was all too much.

What would happen when Ella found out? As far as he knew, she didn’t understand what Daredevil was, much less know that Daredevil was responsible for her dad’s death. She just knew that sometimes Matt dressed up in black and fought bad people to save other people. People like her.

His own voice joined the others ringing in his head. _The law couldn’t do anything to help that little girl. But I could._

But she’d get older. She’d figure out that the man who saved her was the same man who killed her dad. Every second he spent with her until then, every smile he heard in her voice, was borrowed against that future moment.

And Foggy. Foggy was so…so desperate to paint over the truth, but he couldn’t do that forever, couldn’t keep editing away who Matt really was. But Foggy didn’t know how to be friends with a murderer. Wasn’t capable of it. And they both knew it. Just neither of them were brave enough to say it yet.

At least Karen didn’t know, assuming Foggy hadn’t told her. She’d find out, but right now, she had enough to worry about dealing with her dad. Matt hoped Foggy wouldn’t tell her.

_Killing anyone…it will change everything that you feel about yourself._

He should’ve listened.

He hovered next to the shelf by his hallway. There was Stick’s bracelet and there was Stone’s knife. He picked up the weapon. Perfectly balanced, as always.

Not a weapon, really. Just a tool.

_God, forgive me._

Except he was probably doing God a favor. If he just removed himself…well, everything would be so much easier. Better. God wouldn’t have to keep scrambling to clean up his messes, offering mercy and grace again and again and—

He jerked the blade against his wrist.


	12. A God that Loves Me? I Can't Even Love Myself

Matt

The scent of blood filled the air, a distant future spilling away. He dropped the knife and it clattered on the floor, small particles of blood landing on the chair, the table, the wall. Him.

He couldn’t do this to them. The people he cared about. The people depending on him.

And more than that, it struck him that _he wanted to live_. He wanted to hear Foggy laugh and feel Karen’s touch and smell his mother’s scent and he wanted to watch Ella grow up.

 _God, God, I’m sorry._ He crossed himself—bad idea; more blood on his shirt—and fumbled for the first aid kit, never far out of reach. Breathing in and out shakily, he wrapped up his wrist as well as possible with one hand. It hurt more with each beat of his heart.

There. There. It was fine. Nothing happened. Not really.

He stood still, mouth opening and closing like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to scream. Which was true. The whole apartment smelled like blood. Not just his; Conway’s too. Was that all in his head? No, his black shirt and mask where on the floor by his bedroom and they were still soaked in it.

He needed to get out.

He needed help.

Holding his breath, Matt found a hoodie and zipped it up, tugging the sleeve over the bandage on his right arm. Out in the hallway, he didn’t bother locking the door, just called Maggie as he stumbled down the stairs. Was he dizzy from blood loss or was he imagining it? He hadn’t spilled that much, had he?

Pick up, pick up, please pick up.

“Matthew?”

“Mom.” His voice was thick. “Can I come be with you?”

“I’m at the church, honey. What’s wrong?”

“I just—I can’t be alone right now.”

She was in the basement. He really didn’t want to go down there right now, where the memories still pulled at him sometimes. But he’d rather be close to her, so he took the steps one by one, in time to the throbbing of his arm that wasn’t really stopping.

“Is it all right if I put you to work?” Her voice was deceptively calm. She was carrying an armful of linens to a table. “Today is laundry day.”

He fell into place beside her, folding pillowcases mechanically.

After about five minutes, she edged closer to him. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

He shook his head.

“All right.” Because she probably thought he was just upset about…about Conway. Which…it wasn’t like he _wasn’t_ upset about that, so…. So. She rubbed his shoulder for a second. “I need to get another load.”

He tracked her as she moved around the room. Stopped paying attention to what he was doing, just let his fingers do the work without thought. But when she was on her way back, her breathing suddenly changed as she quickened her pace. “You’re bleeding on the clean sheets.”

He dropped everything like it was on fire and stepped away. “Sorry, s-sorry.” He couldn’t tell. He could smell the blood, but he always smelled like blood these days.

“It’s fine,” she said curtly, distractedly, while she bundled fabric together. “I might be able to get it out if—” Then three things happened at once: her voice died and her heart started to race.

And he became aware of the warm wetness on his arm, seeping through his sleeve.

“Matthew,” she whispered.

Shame tightened his throat. “I…”

Casting aside the spoiled linens, she took a slow step towards him. “Shh. Let me take care of this.”

Because that was what she did. She and everyone else in his life. Just fixed all the mistakes he couldn’t stop himself from making, all the mistakes he couldn’t fix on his own. He should be better. They all deserved better.

He couldn’t quite summon the willpower to resist, though. He cooperated as she maneuvered him onto the bed, waited for her while she found a first aid kit, held his arm still as she rolled his sleeve up.

She carefully peeled back the bandage, and he could’ve kissed her when she didn’t really react. It was like this was just another wound, maybe one collected from Stone instead. She didn’t say anything while she refreshed the bandage, threw the old one away. Then she sat beside him on the bed and just leaned her head against his shoulder. Like he was the one giving her strength.

“When did this happen?” she asked finally. He felt her voice through his shoulder before he heard it in his ears.

“Just before I called you.”

“Thank you for that.” She paused. “Have you been thinking about this long?”

“No. It was sudden.”

“Do you know what changed?”

He clenched his right wrist, relished the sharp sting of pain along the cut. “I killed a man?”

“What changed in your _thinking_?” she stressed, undaunted.

He couldn’t bring himself to say it. Too humiliating. “It sounds really dramatic out loud.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” she said dryly.

“Ha.” He wrapped his hands together, taking comfort in the familiar feel of his own skin. “I keep making mistakes. Or…or teetering on the edge of them, which is almost as bad. Not just recently, either. All my life.” He wasn’t narcissistic enough to think that was unique to him. But the scale of his mistakes? That had to be pretty unusual. “And it’s not fair for everyone around me to have to deal with it all the time, have to _fix_ everything for me, fix all my…and I…” He closed his eyes. “I’m so tired, Mom.”

“What about the mistakes you’ve overcome?”

No good. “There’s not enough time between one thing and another. I can’t…I can’t get over this. I can’t get over any of this.” He kept his eyes closed. “It’s like I’m underwater. Ever since Dad, I’ve been fighting just to _breathe_ , but I keep falling back under. Every time I resurface, I have to…I have to cut part of myself away first.” He tightened his fist. “It’s like I don’t know who I am anymore and if this just…if this just keeps happening for the rest of—”

“Shh, no. Don’t try to anticipate the future.”

“I can’t _help_ it.” Didn’t she think about that? Imagine the years unspooling ahead, holding more surprises—none of them good?

“Focus on who you are now, if you can.”

No, he was too tired for that. “I hate that guy.”

She didn’t flinch at his bitterness. “You have to figure out how to accept forgiveness.”

As a nun, she was contractually bound to say that. It meant nothing. “I can’t. You _know_ what I’ve done. Two…two mortal sins now, right?”

“Is that what this is about? What you think you deserve?”

“In front of Foggy and Karen and Ella.” Even to his own ears, his voice belonged to someone who knew he was too far gone. “In your eyes. In the sight of God. I was just…I’ve been trying _so hard_ to be better.” His voice cracked. “You know?”

Because he really had tried. Being honest, reaching out, unleashing the worst of his anger on a punching bag rather than on another person, training with Stone, even agreeing to the stupid list in the first place. It was all to become better. And now that effort was ruined. A waste. He couldn’t blame Conway, either. Maybe Matt hadn’t known the knife would take his life, but he’d made his own choice to use Stone’s knife on himself.

“Hebrews ten fourteen,” she said.

He angled his head away. “Sister, please.”

She stiffened. “Don’t _Sister_ me. I’m your mother.”

“Then stop acting like a nun!”

She put a hand over his mouth, which kind of shocked him. “Hebrews ten fourteen, Matthew. Look it up.”

Swallowing, he finally opened his eyes.

“Listen to me.” She took his hands and squeezed them. “You’re going to be okay. You _are_. Now, do you want to stay here with me, or do you want to go to the office and be with Foggy?”

He loved her. He also kind of hated this basement. “Foggy.”

“I’ll call,” she informed him. “Give him a heads up that you’re on your way.”

“Don’t…” He reached for her hand as she reached for her phone. “Don’t tell him what I…”

“Will you tell him?”

Would she still let him leave if he said no? “I kind of have to.”

“Good.” She touched his face. “I’m calling him anyway.”

So he’d be less tempted to avoid it. So if he didn’t show up…if he did something else instead, tried to repeat his mistake…Foggy would know something was wrong. He should be embarrassed by this. Irritated, at least. But he couldn’t quite work up the energy.

The office smelled like paper and ink, a hint of cigarette smoke that never really went away, a burnt smell from the microwave, the lingering aroma of takeout. A fading hint of Karen’s perfume and the stronger smell of Foggy’s cologne.

Matt brushed his knuckles against his best friend’s door. “Foggy?”

Fabric shifted as Foggy looked up. “Hey, Matt!” His voice was falsely chipper. “What’s up?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Matt stepped inside. “I just…I need you to do something for me. And I might need you to…not freak out.”

“I can’t promise not to freak out, buddy. Freaking out is almost necessarily unintentional.”

That seemed fair. That also made leaving once Matt had gotten what he needed a far more attractive option than staying and confessing to what he’d done, what he’d tried to do. Foggy didn’t need to deal with this. With him.

“Um.” Foggy hesitated. “Could you maybe take off the sunglasses?”

It had seemed childish enough at the time, the impulse to put them on. Seemed even more childish to still be wearing them now. But Matt didn’t answer and he didn’t remove them.

Foggy sighed. “Wanna go somewhere? Or sit?”

Matt lowered himself into the chair across from Foggy’s desk, like he was a client instead of Foggy’s partner.

Foggy moved the papers and books on the desk until there was nothing between them. “Which do you want me to do first? Not freak out, or whatever the other thing is?”

Matt pushed his phone across the desk. “The other thing. I need to know what this says and my audio isn’t working.” A lie, and not even a very good one, but Matt was having a hard enough time convincing himself to reveal the much bigger secret he wanted to keep.

“This is a Bible verse,” Foggy said skeptically.

His braille Bible was still at the church and he hadn’t really wanted to look up the verse in front of Maggie. In case it meant nothing to him (she didn’t need to feel disappointed, feel like she’d failed at helping him). The audio apps he normally used worked once in a while, but not for something like this (he didn’t want a stranger’s voice). He chewed on the inside of his cheek. This was going to be uncomfortable. “Could you just…could you just read it for me?”

Foggy shifted a little in his seat. “Um, sure. ‘For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.’” Pause. “What does that mean?”

Matt repeated the words in his mind, parsing the phrases apart. Forcing them to apply to him. Seemed like they shouldn’t, but he owed it to Maggie to try, didn’t he? So he tried.

Made perfect by one sacrifice. One event, locked in time. Despite his continual mistakes, despite his entire life serving as a record of his capacity for selfishness and cruelty, even (especially) towards the people he most loved, his perfection was somehow done. Established. Certain. In the sight of God, at least.

And in the meantime, he was also being…made holy, even though he still fell so far short of what he should be. He frowned, because the grammar seemed important there. Being _made_ holy…by someone else. Not just in a distant future where he was already mostly fixed but right now, in the midst of all his hurt and shame and failure. He was trying so hard to be better on his own, and meanwhile, God Himself was personally invested in…what, in making that happen?

Somehow, true or not, the idea made it easier to brace for this next part. Even though it was going to hurt. Both of them. His arm throbbed painfully as if in anticipation.

Foggy placed the phone back on the table. “I’m gonna be honest. I really don’t get that.”

“You don’t have to.” Matt retrieved it, slipped it into his pocket. “It, uh, helped.” Then he told himself not to be a coward. He removed his glasses.

Everything about Foggy seemed to soften. “Thanks, buddy.” He folded his hands on his desk. “Okay. I’m ready to not freak out.”

Foggy

Foggy really hoped he could keep that promise. But he couldn’t be sure. So far, he’d been studiously…not thinking. About Conway. About Matt’s involvement. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, but he told himself he could process later, once Ella was okay, once Matt was okay.

If Matt was ever okay.

No. Matt would recover. He always bounced back. His whole stupid life was a testament to that.

Now his sightless eyes flicked back and forth across Foggy’s face and Foggy couldn’t tell if Matt was trying to read him or searching for words.

He looked horrible though. Gray-skinned, disheveled hair, haunted expression. Simultaneously older and so much younger, swathed in a hoodie that felt soft just to look at. He’d looked this bad since…definitely since he’d told Foggy the truth, but he’d already looked sick even before Foggy knew what had happened. He’d probably looked this bad since…well, since.

Now Matt opened his mouth, then narrowed his eyes and closed it. He put his right arm on the desk and slowly pulled the sleeve back with his left hand so Foggy could see the white bandage stained red over his wrist.

Foggy’s heart dropped into his stomach. “Are you okay?”

Matt kind of tilted his head and raised his eyebrows.

Yeah, stupid question. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” For the stupid question. For the fact that this had happened. For the fact that Foggy hadn’t seen this coming, had let him go home alone, hadn’t shown up in his apartment with pancakes the second Matt’s phone had gone to voicemail. For his utter incompetence as a friend. “Matt…”

“It wasn’t premeditated,” Matt said softly. “Not really. I was just desperate, and the knife was right there, and I…the cut isn’t even that deep, it doesn’t hurt, I just…” He let out a slow breath and tugged the sleeve back into place. “I just thought you should know.”

Foggy nodded.

“I’m really sorry, Fogs. I’m really…” His fingers twisted together. “I didn’t even want to. Please don’t worry about me.” His eyes darted away. “You’re worrying, I know you’re worrying. I’m sorry.”

“Matt, geeze, stop apologizing.” Foggy was already on the other side of the desk, reaching for Matt, trying to hug him. Since Matt was still sitting down, it didn’t really work. Foggy didn’t care. “It’s okay. You’re still here. It’s okay.” He looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes against the emotion, against the fact that he had no idea how to handle this.

Matt endured the hug for less than twenty seconds before extricating himself. “This doesn’t change anything.”

Kind of felt like it did. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not the priority right now. Ella, the case…we need to focus on that. I shouldn’t, um, be a distraction." He pulled the sleeve farther down. “With this.”

“Matt.” Foggy put his hands on his shoulders. “You’re not a distraction.”

“I’m a problem without a solution. We need to focus on the problems we can actually solve.”

This…this was probably not the time to argue, not if Foggy’s goal was actually to change his mind. Because Matt wasn’t in a position for mind-changing right now. But Foggy had no idea what else to do. Call a hospital? Barricade Matt in the office—unto what end? There was definitely a solution here. Foggy just didn’t know how to find it, and he couldn’t exactly ask Matt for help because Matt was actively writing himself off.

Foggy’s stomach twisted. “Okay. Let’s stay in, work on the case. I can order some food.”

Matt blanched and he swallowed with apparent difficulty. “Please stop offering me food when I’m upset.”

“What do you want me to do, Matt?” His voice was desperate. “Tell me how to help you.”

“I don’t _know_. Obviously, I have no idea what’s good for me.” He kind of shook his wrist, clenching his jaw so hard Foggy thought it might break, shoulders starting to rise and fall too quickly, too heavily. “I really shouldn’t be making decisions right now, but we need to figure out what to—”

“Ella is _fine_. Right now, in this moment, she’s fine. You’re not. Breathe.”

Matt turned fractionally towards the wall, as if shielding himself. “I didn’t come to you so you could fix me. I came to you because I promised I’d tell you if this…if something like this happened.”

It took Foggy a stupidly long time to connect this alleged promise to the list. The Bad Decisions Spectrum. It took him even longer to realize what a momentous event this actually was. Because it’d been one thing for Matt to tell Foggy about…about Conway. Foggy would’ve figured that out sooner or later, and in the meantime, it immediately affected Ella. At least, Matt was convinced it immediately affected Ella.

This, though? There was no altruistic reason at all to tell Foggy. This wasn’t Matt being a hero. This was Matt being a friend.

A good one.

Which was exactly what Matt needed right now.

Karen

Being in this house again, where so little had changed even after _everything_ changed…it was strangling. It was like being thrown into an alternate timeline that was trying so hard to be the real thing, never mind all the missing pieces.

And Dad? He was the same. If anything, his sickness made him meaner. He obviously despised the fact that she was there, that he needed her, even more than she despised the fact that he’d never figured out how to find himself other people who could help him. It was his fault that she was all he had.

She would have thought that any excuse to leave Vermont early would be a blessing. Funny how wrong one person could be.

She was trying to cook something when her phone rang. “Hey, Foggy. What’s up?”

“Hey, Karen.”

“ _Matt_?” She pulled the phone back to squint at the screen. “Why are you using Foggy’s phone?”

“I, uh, told him my audio was broken.”

Laughing, she put the phone on speaker so she could listen while she stirred a wooden spoon through tomato soup. It was wonderful hearing his voice again. “Why?”

“That’s not important. I was just…I was wondering when you’re coming home?”

Home. It made her smile, the fact that both of them knew that home for her was Hell’s Kitchen. “That depends on my dad, really. I’m trying to hunt down someone else who can help him out too, but in the meantime…unless you need me for something?”

Silence.

She frowned and turned the heat down on the stove. “Matt?”

“I, um…I think I do. Need you.”

Grabbing her phone, she switched the speaker off and pressed it to her ear. “Tell me what happened.”


	13. I Can't Do This Anymore

Ella

She couldn’t stop crying and she didn’t know why. She was afraid of knowing why. It felt like any reason would probably be wrong. Because her dad was dead? And Matt did it? And it was her fault?

She started crying as soon as the scary stranger left. Maybe she should just not believe him. But something made her trust his words. Maybe it was how many times she’d felt or heard or seen Matt’s anger whenever he talked about her dad. And she’d seen him use all that anger against bad people before. And he said people who gave sad colors were bad people. So it made sense that he’d use the anger against her dad, who gave sad colors.

But this was so much worse than anger. So much worse than just sad colors.

Right?

Foggy said that when Matt did hurt people, it wasn’t a punishment. He just wanted to stop them from doing bad things. Which meant her dad must’ve been doing something bad. Not to her—he hadn’t touched her since she’d come to Everett’s. But to someone else, probably. Because her dad wasn’t dangerous to just her. She knew that.

But dead?

Dead was from stories. Not real life. Except for some of the other kids here, like her friend Tasha. Her parents were dead and that was why she was here. All Ella really understood was that it meant they were never coming back. They wouldn’t fight for her or argue about her. They wouldn’t do anything ever again.

And the thought of her dad never being able to do anything ever again…it was like she used to not be able to really breathe and now suddenly she could. But she felt guilty for taking deeper breaths.

And _Matt_. She wanted to hug him. She wanted him to hug her. She also wanted to never, ever see him again.

Foggy, though. Maybe she could see Foggy.

Did Foggy know what Matt did? Or would she have to tell him?

Anyway, she was still crying. She was still crying when Alice woke her up and she was still crying through breakfast. But she couldn’t explain it. She didn’t want to get Matt in trouble.

She was still crying when she heard the grown-ups whispering just outside the room where she was supposed to be practicing reading. Did they really think she couldn’t hear them?

Matt

Foggy’s apartment with Marci was weird. Not just because of the Marci factor, although he figured she was indirectly to blame for most of the weirdness. For instance, this apartment was very clean. Foggy Nelson was not a naturally clean person, which had always been problematic on multiple levels. For one thing, there were always too many smells from old spills and stains piled up under whatever the newer scents were. For another, he had a bad habit of moving furniture around for no reason, and leaving clutter on the floor. None of which really mattered to Matt anymore aside from its general tendency to annoy, but it had been frustrating when Foggy didn’t know about Matt’s senses. Privately, Matt wondered if his knees were permanently bruised from all the times he’d purposefully fallen over something, just to convince Foggy that he was totally, normally blind.

Matt was good at convincing Foggy of things. Although he was slowly gathering that maybe he hadn’t tricked Foggy as thoroughly as he’d always thought. About the senses and the fighting, sure. But not…other things.

He suspected this not because Foggy had come out and said anything but because as soon as Matt shakily hung up from talking with Karen, Foggy had popped back into the room and announced that Matt’s schedule had been rearranged to include crashing at Foggy’s apartment with an inordinate amount of Texas toast.

“Why Texas toast?”

“The only answer to that, my friend, is: always.”

Matt didn’t understand, but he rolled with it.

Regardless, the real clue was not the fact that Foggy offered but the fact that the offer was…something Matt had kind of expected? Not because Matt deserved it but like it was inevitable. Looking back on all the times Foggy had reached out on a weekend after not hearing from Matt to offer a Netflix marathon or ask to go to Josie’s…well, some of that had probably involved no ulterior motives. But some of it had also certainly been an expression of Foggy’s worry.

Again, not worry about the violence or the devil inside or any of the other things Foggy hadn’t known about at the time. No, something else about Matt was cause enough for worry all on its own.

There was probably (definitely) a name for it, if Matt cared to look. Which he didn’t. But he did wonder if Foggy knew the name.

So now he and Foggy were facing each other on the couch as they munched crisply garlic bread, because Foggy didn’t care at all if crumbs got lost in the cracks of the cushions and because Foggy’s unwavering presence was finally enough to convince Matt’s stomach to stop sporadically clenching. Sometimes Foggy talked, which was nice, but Matt wasn’t really paying attention.

He was thinking about those three dead men. He was thinking he was tired of hating his dad for dying, even if Jack had made a choice that he knew would end in his death, even though of course Jack knew his death would hurt his son. Sure, he’d left Matt all that money (there’d never been a moment when Matt wouldn’t have traded all of it just to touch his face again). More importantly, Matt couldn’t really judge someone for…for sometimes making a choice you knew would hurt the people you cared about because, in that moment, it really seemed like the only thing you could do.

Matt was thinking that his dad might be dead, but he didn’t have to be dead to Matt. Not anymore.

He was also thinking about Stick and Conway. They’d both done such terrible things and, yeah, the ripple effects were going to keep spreading. But Matt was also thinking he’d rather stop letting them pick fights in his head all the time. He’d rather let them both just be dead.

Karen

Foggy opened the door to his apartment building before she even knocked, swiftly stepping outside and closing it behind him. Then he held up his phone so she could see the message he’d tapped into some kind of memo app.

_He’s inside._

“Kinda figured,” she said.

Foggy tapped out something else. _What did he tell you?_

This felt juvenile. And like a waste of time, when she needed to get to Matt, not leave him alone. But she wrote a note on her phone and held it up. _Conway. Suicide._

Foggy looked surprised and that…that stung a bit, actually. Did he not think Matt would tell her all of it? “Good,” he said. Then his brow furrowed and he quickly tapped out a new message. _You know about hemophilia? Tell him it’s not his fault._

She gave her head a small shake.

“Karen,” he insisted, and wrote something else. _Freaking out over stupid legal doctrine. Thinks it’s his fault but couldn’t have known._

“I don’t think that’s the real issue here, actually,” she said. Because, technically, she hadn’t meant to kill her brother either. But whenever she remembered what happened, the word “accident” never featured in her thoughts. Never, not once.

“Don’t make it worse,” Foggy warned. Out loud, so she could hear his intensity.

“Oh I’m sorry, I thought we set this up because you trust me.”

For a moment, they just locked eyes. Then Foggy lowered his head and opened the door for her. “Sorry.”

“Thanks,” she said, a little more coldly than she meant, crossing the threshold and taking the stairs up to Foggy’s apartment where she gave herself just a second or two to gather herself before opening the door.

Matt was on the couch. “Hey, Karen.” His voice sounded dead. He looked it, too, like death wrapped in a hoodie. He was fidgeting with his sleeve, pulling it over his hand and completely hiding the bandage from her sight. The bandage Foggy told her was there. Apparently, it had needed to be changed three times by now.

She tucked her hair behind her ears, gave herself a second longer to prepare, and plunged into the room. She sat as close to him on the couch as she could and put her arms around his neck. “Hi, Matt.”

She hadn’t realized how normal it had become for him to lean into her touch until now that he didn’t. “Thank you for coming.”

Like it was possible she wouldn’t. “I’ve missed you.”

There was a soft smile, but no answer.

“How many people have you talked to?”

Now he laughed humorlessly. “About which part?”

“Any of it.”

A shrug. “Foggy. My mom.”

“You might think about expanding that list,” she suggested tentatively. “Maybe to include a therapist?”

“Yeah? Because the fact that I’m Daredevil is irrelevant here?”

“What about confidentiality?”

“Doesn’t work like that. I’m not—I’m can’t stop doing what I do. I’m just going to keep hurting people. Anyone I talk to has a duty to turn me in.”

She looked at Foggy for confirmation and Foggy didn’t refute his statement. It was on the tip of her tongue to spin it, point out how hard it was for her and Foggy and Maggie to try to help him navigate his world. If there was one way to motivate him, it was to tie his problems to the people he cared about.

But if that strategy backfired, he’d stop talking altogether. It wasn’t worth the risk.

“Okay. Forget about that, then.” She stroked the shorter hairs at the nape of his neck, a touch normally guaranteed to make him sink against her, but he was still stiff. She didn’t say anything. She had a whole list of things prepared to say, but she knew he’d leap at the chance to argue. Right now, he needed her presence far more than he needed her words. So she kept stroking him and pretended it was helping.

“Karen,” he said finally, quietly. 

“Yeah?”

“I can’t…keep doing this.”

She could relate. Oh, she could relate. Then again, he wasn’t at the bottom of a bottle right now. To hear Foggy say it, Matt’s first move after breaking his one, cardinal rule had been to _go to work_ and, okay, there was obviously some repression going on. But still. And his first move after…after a suicide attempt had been to reach out, first to his mother and then to Foggy. Then he’d been the one to call her, even if Foggy had been the one to suggest it.

She wished she could tell him how proud she was. But she didn’t know how he’d take that right now.

“One day at a time,” she said instead.

“I can’t do that. If I…if I have to start over, work through this every day for the rest of—”

“It’s not starting over each day, Matt. It’s building something. Or rebuilding, maybe. And it’s slow, but that’s the good part, okay? The good part is that you don’t have to rebuild it all at once.”

He exhaled, short and loud. “I’d rather do that, though.”

“It’s impossible,” she said flatly. “So it’s a really, really good thing that you don’t have to try. Please…please don’t try, Matt. Time is your friend right now.”

He was rubbing his thumb over his knuckles, torn knuckles. “It’s not gonna go away. Is it?”

She bit her lip. “It’ll get less bad after—”

“Is it?”

She sighed. “No.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“I don’t know, you…you find good things in the world. You try to add more wherever you can. You hope it’ll all balance out.”

He gave her what was probably supposed to be an incredulous glance.

She sat up on the edge of the couch, turned his face towards her. “I know that sounds stupid, but it’s _hard_. You hunt down everything good and you try to do good and you accept that you’ll never be able to sit down and—and sketch this out like a spreadsheet to check whether your life adds up. You just can’t. So, you trust that it’ll all work out and whenever the guilt comes back, you—you tell yourself that it isn’t who you are.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. “I tell myself it isn’t even part of me.”

“I can’t do that.”

From his expression, she understood that he literally couldn’t. “I don’t mean that what you _did_ isn’t part of you. I think all the things we’ve done are part of us, including the bad. Picking only picking the good things wouldn’t be honest. But the _guilt_ doesn’t have to be part of you. We all make mistakes, but the mistakes make us better than we were before.”

He gave his head a small, sad shake.

“Maybe that doesn’t make sense right now,” she admitted. “Maybe it won’t ever. Not to you. I’m just…I’m just telling you how it works for me.” How it had to work for her, or else she’d fall apart.

Matt wet his lips. “Thank you. Karen.”

She carefully held back the sigh of relief building in her chest, which was almost painfully tight not from fear or anger or anything but from the sheer intensity of the moment. Seeking some way to lessen that intensity, she glanced over her shoulder to Foggy, still standing in the doorway.

She’d almost forgotten he was in the room.

But his face…he looked emotionless, removed, even though his eyes were red-rimmed. When she raised her eyebrows at him, he shook his head.

She understood. This moment belonged to her and Matt. Foggy…he could sympathize, he could feel sorry for his friends, he could maybe even feel some kind of survivor’s guilt over the fact that he didn’t really _get_ it…but he didn’t get it. He couldn’t. And he knew it. And she was so glad he couldn’t understand.

And yet.

“Foggy,” she said softly.

He put his hands in his pockets. “No,” he said thickly. “You guys are good. I’m taking care of the very important task of…guarding the hallway.”

“Foggy.”

“It’s a very sketchy hallway, Karen. With lots of bugs, probably.”

“Foggy, come _here_.”

He moved his feet, went to sit on Matt’s other side so the vigilante was squished between them. Matt stayed rigid, but he wasn’t complaining. Wasn’t leaving.

Foggy folded his hands over his knees. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said weakly. “I don’t really know what to say. To, um, either of you.”

“Good,” Karen said, “because you don’t have to say anything.”

It was enough just to sit there together.


	14. You and I are Forgiven

Foggy

Foggy wasn’t a superhero: he couldn’t punch Matt’s problems away. Nor was he a nun: he couldn’t give Matt a hymn or a Bible passage or whatever. Nor was he a girlfriend who happened to have a scarily similar tragic backstory.

But he was a highly skilled avocado.

“Hi, Brett!” he said cheerfully, echoing a little in the police station hallway.

Looking particularly impatient under the fluorescent lights, Brett Mahoney adjusted his tie with the hand not holding his coffee mug. “Nelson.”

“Wow, no insults upon first greeting? Is this a new milestone for our relationship? Makes sense, I’d say, given everything we went through together with Fisk. Bonded by trauma, right?”

“I never have time for you, Nelson, but today I especially don’t have time for you.”

“Say no more, my friend! I’ll cut straight to it. I need a list of every person Daredevil has ever saved.”

Brett choked on his coffee. “You what?”

“A list of—”

“I heard you the first time. You really think I’ve got nothing better to do than go through all those files?”

“I just need the names. I can look up the cases on my own.” He only trusted himself to know what facts to look for anyway.

“You do know how many people that is, right?”

“I’m not asking you to alphabetize it,” Foggy coaxed. “You don’t even have to type it. I’ll accept chicken scratch.”

Brett looked supremely unimpressed.

“I’m actually shocked you don’t already have a list.” What else were their tax dollars paying for?

“You think we don’t have enough paperwork as it is without updating some list night after night?”

Foggy was undeterred. He had two secret weapons armed and ready. “You know what case we’re working on, right?”

“No, Nelson, I don’t. I have much better things to do than track your caseload, and those better things do not include rooting through files on a vigilante with three years of energetic activity.” Brett turned around.

“It’s a little girl,” Foggy told the back of his head. “Seven years old. We’re trying to keep her out of her parents’ hands. The mom’s an actual mess and the dad is Kyle Conway.”

Brett stopped.

“Yeah, that guy. Aside from the fact that he was killed in a fight recently, he’s got a history of sex abuse. The little girl, though? Daredevil rescued her from a kidnapping a while back, and he was recently involved in the fight that killed her dad. Matt…Matt’s worried the judge will think the vigilante contaminated the case.”

Brett turned around. “Maybe he’s right.”

“You can’t really think that. After all, if the list of people Daredevil’s saved only included, like, five people, you wouldn’t hesitate to give it to me just to get me out of your hair. So just how long _is_ this list?”

Brett put his hands on his hips. “Are you really trying to play a numbers game right now? Show the statistical probability of Daredevil getting involved with two people on the opposite side of the same case? You’re not smart enough to pull that off.”

“I’m not sure what I’m trying to do yet, actually, and I won’t know for sure until I get a look at the cases. But this little girl…” Foggy moved closer. “She’s finally in a safe place, Brett. And there are some really good families looking at adopting her. But none of that will last if this case keeps hanging over her head. It’s not…” He shook his head. “Well, it’s not fair.”

Brett glared. Then he snorted. “I was gonna treat my mom tonight. Take her to some fancy restaurant. Now I’m gonna be staying in working on this list because there’s way too many names and I won’t have enough time on my lunch break to get through a third of them. How does that make you feel?”

“Really, really thankful. If it helps…” He held out the paper bag from behind his bag. His last weapon. “These are for Bess. To make up for her lost date night.”

Brett’s glare worsened. But he snatched the bag out of Foggy’s hand.

Perfect. That was the first of his major objectives for the day. One more to cross off the list. Unfortunately, the second meeting would undoubtedly be harder. And he wasn’t allowed to bring cigars.

“Hi, Graham. How is she?”

Burnham looked like he’d aged five years since he’d first shown up in Foggy’s office to tell him the story of a little girl who needed somewhere safe to live. “She’s too young for this.”

 _Same_ , Foggy wanted to say, but Burnham needed to trust that Foggy could be an adult around Ella right now. “How much does she know?” he asked as Burnham led him through another hallway, this one significantly less fluorescent and echo-y.

He gave Foggy a strangely piercing look. “More than she’s letting on, I think. And more than she should. Tell me if she says anything you think I should know.”

It wasn’t a suggestion.

Burnham took Foggy to one of the common areas. It was more peaceful than Foggy had ever seen it: one little girl was reading quietly to herself; a little boy was napping, sprawled out on the floor and snoring. Ella in a low chair, an array of colored pencils spread in a rainbow on the table. But the sheet of paper in front of her was blank.

Foggy pulled up a chair and sort of squatted in it beside her. “Hey, pumpkin.”

Ella blinked hard and didn’t look at him; tears clung to her dark lashes.

“Heard about what happened,” Foggy said gently. “I guess you did too.”

“Miss Alice told me. But…” She turned her face towards him but didn’t make eye contact, looking instead over his shoulder where Burnham had disappeared back down the corridor. “But someone else told me first.”

If the police had bypassed the adults around her to talk to her, Foggy would not hesitate to throw the book at them, perhaps literally. “Who told you?”

“Don’t know.” She selected a yellow pencil, then put it back down again. “He got into my room. Like Matt did when he brought me back.”

He kept his voice down with great effort. “Someone broke into your room?”

“He wanted me to know what happened. He wanted me to know Matt was sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” he asked weakly.

Her eyes locked onto his, like she was burrowing into his brain to find the truth. “He said Matt’s the reason my dad is dead.”

Foggy’s heart and lungs dropped into his stomach. “He, uh…wait, who said that?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is it true?”

He couldn’t lie to her. He couldn’t very well say, “Ask Matt,” either, because that was tantamount to admitting the truth and he was steadily becoming convinced that Matt and Ella would never be able to be in the same room again and _that_ thought made his stomach twist painfully around all his dislodged internal organs. “Yeah,” he said heavily. “It was Matt. But it was…really complicated.”

She picked up another pencil but didn’t draw. “Foggy, was it on purpose?”

“Oh, no, pumpkin.” He tried to ignore his growing terror over what other questions she might ask. But this one, at least, he could answer with confidence. “You know how your dad bleeds a lot more than other people? He started bleeding. Because, apparently, he decided that threatening people with a knife was a great idea, but that—but that’s not the point,” he said quickly. “The point is, Matt tried to _save_ him.”

She met Foggy’s eyes again, with just as much intensity as before. “He did?”

“Really hard. He called the ambulance and everything.”

Her relief was almost tangible. She leaned into him, nestling under his arm for a moment, like she’d been using all her strength to stay upright under the thought that Matt had intentionally killed her father.

 _Same,_ Foggy thought once more. “Remember what I said?” he murmured instead. “When you asked about Matt giving sad colors?”

She lifted her head. “You said he’s still a good guy. Because he fights for other people.”

“That’s still true, Ella.”

“The stranger said Matt killed my dad for me. Because of me?”

Foggy wanted to punch Stone, but he figured Matt deserved that chance more. “It’s…it’s more complicated than that. You, um, you know your mom’s boyfriend? Your dad was gonna hurt him. Matt was trying to keep him safe, so your dad tried to hurt both of them. Matt was protecting himself and your mom’s boyfriend at the same time. Your dad just got cut really bad.”

She nodded slowly as she processed this.

Foggy tipped her chin up so she would look at him again. “But it’s also true that Matt and I want you to be safe. And Matt knew that your dad was dangerous to you. He would’ve fought him off for you a thousand times if he had to. But it’s not just about the fighting. It’s _protecting_. For me, it’s like…” This was going to sound exceptionally sappy, but if there was ever a moment of sap, surely this was it. “I don’t know. It’s like a law of nature or something. I know Matt loves me, and when Matt loves you, you just feel like the safest person in the world.”

“Foggy, I know,” she said, and something in her voice told him that, actually, she probably knew better than he did.

Matt

Matt was on edge, but what else was new?

Foggy had needed to “take care of something” so he’d ducked out of the office early. Karen was still at her desk, typing intermittently, but Matt would’ve known even without heightened senses that she kept straining to catch a glimpse of him. He tried very hard not to touch the bandage on his arm; the wound beneath still ached dully and he wondered how deep he’d actually managed to cut. Wondered why this injury was so much more insist than all his others. Wished it would stop hurting for five seconds so he could move on. Regardless, he couldn’t get any work done and the office still smelled like Maggie’s tears. Finally, he went to Karen’s desk to suggest they work somewhere else.

Not his place. His place still smelled like blood.

So now they were outside Karen’s apartment and that was worse, because her place smelled like _Stone_. Matt pushed past her as soon as she unlocked the door. “Stay back.”

“Why?” She wasn’t, of course. She was following after him, but she’d drawn her gun, and he was both relieved that she was, for once in her life, exercising some degree of caution and disconcerted because it was a _gun_.

Electing not to answer, he just hunted through every room twice to make sure no living thing lurked inside, ignoring her further requests for an explanation until he was sure they were safe.

“If you’re done acting like a search dog,” she said pointedly when he finally stood still.

“Stone’s been here.”

“The guy who stabbed you?”

Matt scowled. Surely she could come up with a better identifier than that. “Sure, yeah, whatever. His scent is layered; he’s been here more than once. Stay here.” Matt headed for the door.

She grabbed his hand. “I don’t think so, Murdock.”

They both knew he could escape effortlessly if he wanted. He stopped anyway. “Karen, I can’t let him get away with this.”

“He won’t.” There was something steely in her voice. “But it’s my apartment.”

Matt wasn’t thrilled at this reaction. But he wasn’t really surprised, either. And she was right; this was her insult, her indignity. “Do you have a plan?”

“I have three.”

“Do, uh…do any of them need my help?” he asked hopefully.

She pulled him backwards into the kitchen. “I’ll let you know when I decide. For now, let’s not let him take time away from us helping clients, all right?”

He loved her. They set up their respective equipment side-by-side at her kitchen counter and it was almost easier to focus on the Sanford case with her scent so close, mostly drowning out the others.

Some amount of time later (he had no idea), her hand landed over one of his. “Matt. You’re replaying it in your head.”

He’d stopped feeling the braille and now the dots were refreshing endlessly under his fingers without his notice. He rubbed at his eyes. “It’s hard to stop.”

“I know.”

For the first time, the simple truth of that statement wrapped itself around his heart like an embrace. Or maybe he was being strangled. “Karen, I…”

She turned on her stool to face him.

He’d been so blind. So unforgivably selfish. Deliberately, he slid off the stool and put his hands on her shoulders, tilting his head down, trying to meet her eyes. “Karen, I’m so sorry.”

“What for?” she asked cautiously.

“When you told me about…about Westley. And your brother. In the church. I didn’t…” He lowered his head, lowered his gaze. He’d been too focused on himself, on Fisk, on his own messed-up life. Hadn’t stopped to think about what those confessions had actually meant for her or what they must’ve cost her. “I didn’t listen. Not really.”

“It’s okay, Matt. I wasn’t looking for anything from you.”

No, because she’d been more worried that he wanted to kill Fisk. She’d told him, through tears, about all the deaths not out of guilt or a need for closure but _for his sake_. He couldn’t find the words to express how much that meant to him, so instead he carefully gathered her in his arms, slid her off the stool so he could press her closer to himself.

She stood uncertainly in his embrace. “What are you doing?”

He rested forehead against hers. “I should’ve held you.”

“We were a little busy trying to stay alive.”

“I should’ve held you.”

But she was unyielding in his arms. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t feel that much worse.”

“What doesn’t?” he murmured.

“Killing Wesley compared with…my brother. Even though killing Wesley wasn’t an accident. And doesn’t that seem messed up, somehow? I feel like that should matter, like I should be—” She cut herself off with a quick inhale.

“You hated Wesley,” he said slowly. “I hated Conway. We wanted them to hurt. Doesn’t mean we wanted them dead.”

There was a pause. “I shot him, Matt.”

“You were scared,” he assured her. “You wanted him gone and you wanted him to hurt.”

She spoke so quietly he wouldn’t have heard at all except that he was him. “I wanted him dead.”

His brain kind of stopped. “What?”

“I wanted…” She sniffed. “He said he was gonna kill everyone. Everyone I cared about. And he wouldn’t stop _talking_ and I just…” She tried to pull away, and when he didn’t let her go, she unhooked some of her hair which had been tucked behind her ear, letting it shield her instead. “I wanted him dead.”

He didn’t know what to say. He had absolutely no idea what to say. She was starting to shake in his arms. Possibly because of what she’d done. Possibly because he was handling this the worst way possible. It was the church basement all over again.

“It doesn’t matter,” he finally blurted out. Stupidly.

He was thankful he couldn’t see whatever look she must be giving him. “You could have at least tried to come up with something convincing.”

“I mean, I mean…” He stopped and closed his eyes. “Give me a second.”

“Don’t, Matt. You don’t have to make this okay for me.”

“Give me a second,” he insisted, pressing his face into her hair.

She complied. The shaking slowed down. Now she just seemed tired, and not particularly hopeful that he’d come up with anything worth saying.

And yeah, he should probably keep his mouth shut. Instead, because she was hurting and he wasn’t a coward, he tried again. With a question this time, because that seemed both safer and kinder than making assumptions. “Which part of this bothers you?”

“It, um…it doesn’t.” There was the sound of teeth tugging on her lip. “I mean, it bothers you, and it bothers Foggy when he thinks about it, so it bothers me that it bothers you. And it would definitely bother the NYPD if they ever found out, and I guess it scares me because…because it would ruin my life if they _did_ find out, but it…it doesn’t bother me.” She swallowed. “Sometimes that bothers me.”

He half-laughed before he could stop himself. “Sorry, I’m so sorry. But that’s how I feel about, uh, Daredevil. Except that what you went through is worse. But—but not because _you’re_ worse, although what you did was—” He shut his mouth. “Let me back up. What you just described is something I’m familiar with. That’s all.”

She hummed, which he interpreted as the equivalent of an eyebrow raise.

One last try. More carefully this time. “You told me before that you could never atone for what you did.”

“That didn’t mean anything,” she said uncomfortably. “I was…you weren’t being very Catholic at the time, so I was trying to help. That didn’t mean anything.”

Lie. She must be lying now because there’d been no lie then, neither in her heartbeat nor in her tears.

“You said I always treated you like you were innocent.” His voice was muffled in her hair. “Does that mean you don’t think you are?”

She jerked away more harshly. “I’ve killed two people, Matt. The first because I was drunk and high, and the second because I wanted to. What does that sound like?”

“Shh, shh. Hey.” He drew her back in, nestled his face against hers. “Listen. Karen, there’s not a person alive who hasn’t hurt someone else. Intentionally, even. Which means…which means there isn’t a person alive who’s innocent. But there isn’t a person alive beyond the reach of redemption. Or forgiveness. You see?”

Her damp lashes brushed his skin as she closed her eyes.

If that could be true even for people like Fisk, surely it was true for him. For her. “You don’t, uh…you don’t have to believe that. I’m just telling you how it works for me.”

She didn’t say anything and he wasn’t sure whether he’d actually managed to provide any comfort. He still wasn’t sure whether that was even what was actually upsetting her. But she was leaning fully against him again. Trusting him. So he took that small victory and changed tactics. Lowering his head, he nudged her gently until she tipped her face upward and accepted his kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't supposed to happen, guys. But I was skipping around S3 (for science, for feeels) and hit Matt and Karen's scene in the basement and realized she never told him that shooting Wesley wasn't 100% in self-defense. So. Had to discuss it.


	15. I Release You from My Wrath

Matt

She was deepening the kiss just as the door to her apartment opened and he belatedly noticed Foggy’s heavier footsteps. They sprang apart. “How’d it go at Everett’s?” Karen asked loudly.

So that was where he’d been. All the tension that had seeped out of Matt at Karen’s touch returned in less than the time it took to blink.

“She’s, uh, pretty shaken up. Obviously.” Foggy cleared his throat, shedding his coat. “Your friend, Matt? The guy who stabbed you?”

“He’s not my friend. And for the record, I’ve stabbed him back.”

“Oh. Well. Good. Because I want to punch him in the face.”

“Already called dibs,” Karen cut in.

“Guys.” Matt tapped a staccato beat against his belt. “What happened, Foggy?”

“Ella already knew what happened. I mean, that it was you. No, calm down, I think I talked her around. She knows he’s a hemophiliac so _that_ helps. What was Conway thinking? Hi, I’m a guy who can bleed out in under sixty seconds; time to go pick a _knife_ fight!”

Karen motioned sharply. “Foggy, shut up.”

Matt swiftly rearranged his features. “I’m fine.”

Mumbling something incoherent, Foggy shoved his hands into his pockets. “Right. Anyway. So apparently, Stone visited right after it happened. Told her his own version of it before she heard anything from Burnham or Alice.”

Matt’s mouth went dry.

Foggy was clearly trying to sound casual. Like, _oh, the usual_. “He said, um, that you killed her dad not in defense of anyone, and also that it was somehow her fault.”

Karen swore under her breath.

With great self-control, Matt did not punch the counter. “And she believed that?”

“I’m not sure,” Foggy said carefully. “She was asking lots of hard questions. Going for more information. She’s smart, Matt. And she knows you. I told her you tried to keep him alive and I told her that fighting for her is different than…um, than killing someone for her. At least, I tried to. I’m not exactly fluent in seven-year-old girl.”

Matt ran a hand roughly through his hair. “Yeah. Yeah. I should talk to her.”

Foggy’s breathing stuttered. “That wasn’t actually what I was suggesting.”

Matt’s head snapped up. “You think I can’t handle it? Or you think she can’t?”

“I didn’t say that,” Foggy said slowly. “I’m just thinking maybe you should give yourself a bit more time to process what happened before you try to spell it out to the little girl whose dad just died. I already told her everything important, remember?”

“Yeah, and you said you’re not sure what she believes.” Besides, Matt wasn’t afraid he wouldn’t be able to explain what happened, although that was a risk. He was afraid whatever she was thinking would be worse than any botched explanation he could come up with. He managed half a smile, probably. “Excuse me if I don’t have much faith in your ability to speak seven-year-old girl. I need to talk to her.”

Karen’s touched his arm. “Maybe tomorrow? It’s been a long day.”

“Karen, I’m _fine_.”

“I meant that it’s been a long day for her.”

Matt instantly hated himself. She’d lost her _father_ , a man who’d caused enough mixed emotions while he was still living. Now Matt thought he had the right to barge in on everything she must be feeling, just so he could beg for absolution? In addition to all the ways he’d already hurt her, this would be—

“Matt.” Karen snapped her fingers by his ear. “Say it out loud, or stop thinking it.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I’ll stop. You’re right; I should leave her alone.”

“No one said that.” Foggy sounded so distinctly exasperated and it was such a familiar sound, free of the horror and uncertainty that had been following him around like a cloud, that Matt almost laughed. “Just let her get a good night’s sleep. Maybe try getting that for yourself, too.”

Propping her chin on his shoulder, Karen hummed in his ear. “I could help you with that.”

He knew better than to think that was an actual proposition. She just didn’t want to leave him alone. “Thanks. But I’ll just go home. I’ll be fine, I swear,” he added, in case Foggy and Karen were exchanging skeptical glances. But they were putting in so much effort for him; he could at least meet them halfway. He put his hands in his pockets. “I’ll have my phone on me. If you call, I’ll answer. If I don’t, you have my permission to break in.” He gave smiling another shot and managed at least a third of it, probably. “I’ll even leave the door unlocked.”

“Or,” Foggy began.

Matt shook his head before he could invite himself over. “You said Ella needs time. You’re right. And I, uh…I think I do too.”

He opened the door to his apartment and cocked his head. Someone had opened the small window high in his bathroom to let in a breeze, which meant the place was freezing, but there was warmth from his kitchen where the same person had recently finished making chocolate chip cookies, which were now filling the air with their aroma as well as her scent.

Beneath it all, there was still a trace of blood in the air. But she’d cleaned the splatter by his hallway and the copper smell was fading fast. The black shirt and mask were no longer in a pile on the floor. Instead, he walked into the bedroom to find them laid out on his bed, smelling of his odorless soap and Maggie.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he changed into the black fatigues, but hesitated before reaching for the mask. The person who’d last worn it was so different from the person he wanted to be.

But a siren rang in the distance. People still needed help and he…he could still help them.

He stopped three muggings and two attempted assaults. Scared off a handful of other would-be criminals who didn’t get around to acting on whatever they were planning. Except for a lucky club to his shoulder that would leave an annoying bruise, no one even landed a hit. It was an easy night. Any other time, he probably would’ve stayed out longer, just enjoyed the sounds of Hell’s Kitchen being almost peaceful. Maybe try to find a more exciting route across town, or a faster route to Foggy’s place.

But Matt was tired.

And Stone was waiting for him on his roof, and they needed to have a…conversation.

“You’ve been busy,” Stone said as Matt landed on the edge.

Unsure what he meant, Matt didn’t answer.

“Can I see?”

Pressing his mouth into a line, Matt held very still as Stone drew closer. Slowly, Stone reached for Matt’s right wrist. When Matt didn’t move, he swiped his thumb over the bandage under his sleeve. Matt turned his head away, trying to hide his wince and knowing Stone had seen it anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Stone said.

He managed a small nod.

“Not just because of that, either.” Stone dropped his wrist and scratched at the back of his own neck. “I know this isn’t how you wanted your first kill to happen.”

Matt ran his tongue against the back of his teeth at the insanity of that statement.

“It’ll get easier. I know it’s hard to see that right now.” Stone moved closer. “My advice? Take some time for yourself. Listen to a nice audiobook or whatever it is you do to relax. But try to get back to training as soon as—”

“Stone,” Matt cut in. “I know you’re not stupid enough to think I’m actually on my way to becoming anything like you.”

Stone sighed. “You’re grieving for what you used to be. I remember that. I understand.” He waited a moment. “And I know your friends really can’t relate, but I’m here.”

“They’re not like that.” Matt raised his voice a little, more for his sake than Stone’s. “They’re not leaving.”

“Well, not yet,” Stone agreed calmly. “Shock is a powerful thing, Matty, and not just for you.”

“I’m not—” Matt stopped himself. Stone would never understand and maybe one day, that would seem like a tragic thing. Right now, Matt was too caught up with the thought of Stone talking to Ella. In her room. “I told you to stay away.”

“I don’t recall.”

“Not from me. From Ella.”

“Ah.” Stone’s voice hardened. “Have you spoken with her yet?”

Matt ignored the pang in his chest. “I know what you were trying to do and it didn’t work.”

“Really. Then why do you look so angry?”

Matt smiled coldly. “I’m not just angry over what you tried to do, Stone. I’m angry about whatever you might try to do next.”

Stone lazily raised his right hand. “I swear I won’t do anything to the little girl.”

A skip in his heartbeat. With two steps, Matt closed the distance between them and grabbed his lapels.

Stone laughed in his face. “What’s your plan, Devil? Kill me? It wouldn’t be so great a leap from what you’ve already done. A bit more coldblooded, perhaps.” He wriggled his hand between Matt’s arms, up to touch his face; Stone’s skin was cold against Matt’s heat. “Then again, you’re furious. What would that make it, a crime of passion?”

And he was weaponless. If there was ever a moment when his defeat at Matt’s hands would be certain, this was it. Matt clenched the fabric of his shirt tighter. Stone’s breathing hitched in anticipation.

Shoving him away, Matt took a jerky step backwards, fighting to bring his breathing back under control. After about a minute, he trusted himself to speak. “She didn’t believe you.”

“Didn’t she.” Stone sounded so disappointed and Matt wasn’t sure why.

“My friend talked to her. She knows it wasn’t on purpose and she knows it wasn’t her fault. But you…you would’ve had her believe all of that. Why?” His voice cracked. “Just to get to me?”

“She’s a distraction to you.”

“And I’m a distraction to _you_ ,” Matt snapped back. “Don’t you have better things to do than spend so much time on someone who’ll never be what you want?”

Stone lowered his voice. “Oh, but you’re so close, Matty. After all, you finally did it.”

“Wasn’t like that. Wasn’t deliberate.”

“It was Ella’s father, though. Didn’t you hate him? Wasn’t he just like Stick? I just want to know.” Stone moved closer, tilted his head. “Did it feel like killing Stick?”

Matt flinched away. “No. Nothing like that. It was just…really pathetic.” He pulled Stone’s knife out of his belt. “You can take this back. I don’t need it.”

Stone didn’t accept it. “You’re not done training.”

Fine. Matt dropped the knife on the roof. “Actually, I’m good as I am.” He snapped his arm out and caught Stone’s hand, bringing it firmly against his own chest. “Wait,” he said quietly, “I know you can hear my heartbeat almost as well as I can hear yours. But I want you to feel this. Are you listening?”

“Hanging on every word,” Stone drawled.

“I am not going to change. You’re far from the first person to try to destroy who I am and I’m thinking you won’t be the last. It doesn’t matter.” He paused, made sure Stone was really listening. “If you hurt anyone I care about ever again, I will tear you apart. With the law or with my own hands; I don’t really care. But it’s a waste of your time. I’m not going to change.”

Stone’s hand twitched.

Matt tightened his hold. “Maybe you still believe that Stick’s efforts with me were wasted. I don’t. I’m using what he taught me to help people. But all of that, everything Stick gave me, is only part of me. I have so much else. Can you say the same?” Matt threw his hand aside. “I’m not going to change.”

For a moment, Stone did not move. Then he picked up the knife, spinning it once. “You could keep this. It’s just a tool.”

“Well balanced,” Matt admitted, “but I’m good. Take care of yourself.” He brushed past him, walking stiffly across the roof. His hands at his side had begun to tremble ever so slightly, just enough to be noticeable.

He stopped outside the door to his apartment. He was so tired, a tiredness that went far deeper than what was physical. He shouldn’t have stopped moving. He needed to keep momentum, especially now that he felt tears stinging at his eyes.

Stupid. He hadn’t cried after Conway’s death and he hadn’t cried when he’d used Stone’s knife. Hadn’t even cried in the aftermath, with Foggy and Karen and his mom. There was no reason to cry now.

Stick would’ve killed Conway and not lost a wink of sleep over it.

Stick would’ve told him not to be emotional.

Stone was still on his roof.

Stone would know.

Matt opened the door. Entered his empty apartment. Descended the steps and stood in the center of the living room. Concentrated until he could smell the blood again, his own alongside his enemy’s.

He walked into the bedroom, slid the door closed, and knelt beside his bed. Removed his mask and set it carefully on the floor. Rested his forehead against the soft comforter.

And allowed the tears to fall for the person he used to be.


	16. Breaking the Grip of My Heart

Stone

There was a laminated note taped to the outside of her window.

_We need to talk. Don’t be a coward._

This was probably violating Matty’s rule from the other night. But if it provoked Matty into a fight, no harm done. Picking a fight with him was always the best way to get him to wake up. And in the meantime, this ought to be fun. Stone slid the window open and twisted inside to come face-to-face with the girlfriend.

Karen Page, he understood. She held a handgun at her side. “So you got my message,” she greeted him.

“You really think that gun can protect you if I want you dead?”

“Matt knew you broke in. Smelled you all over the place. Wanted to rip you apart.” She casually aimed the gun at his chest. “I told him to let me have the pleasure.”

Stone raised his eyebrows. The Devil had made no sign that he knew of Stone’s intrusion. He was a better actor than Stone had given him credit for. “And he listened?”

“He usually does, to me. Most people listen to me, now that I think of it. You, though? I’d rather do the listening while you talk. Tell me what you were doing in my apartment.”

“I was curious,” Stone said blandly.

“You’re gonna have to do a lot better than that. Maybe some ground rules would help? How about this: if you don’t give me what I want, I can shoot you in lots and lots of places that will really hurt. Or, I can let you crawl back out the window and Matt will hurt you all on his own. But his way would take longer.”

Stone wasn’t afraid of pain, but he was…charmed. Beguiled. “You should be dead,” he admitted.

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s the answer to your question. You should be dead, or else he should be dead. That was what we were taught. The closer you get to someone, the more both of you are at risk. And Matty has gotten far too close to you.”

She laughed witheringly. “Trust me, Matt and I have always been plenty at risk. Is that why you came here?” She inched closer, voice dropping lower. “Is that what you wanted? Evidence that Stick was lying to you for all those years?”

“He wasn’t lying.”

“Evidence that he was wrong, then? Well.” She gestured to herself with her free hand. “Take a good look.”

“If you’re looking for congratulations—”

“I just wanted an explanation. Maybe you deserve one too, an explanation for why, no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be able to warp Matt into what you want him to be.” She gestured to herself again. “Take another look.”

“How egotistical of you.”

“I’ve killed two people in my life, Stone. One with a gun much like this one.” She tilted the handgun. “And yet Matt still sees me for who I am.”

“You shouldn’t care what he sees in you. Not with what you can see in him.” Men like Stick and Stone and Matty were frightening to normal people; it was the necessary cost of warfare.

“How many people have left you, I wonder. For what they see in you.”

But Stone felt not so much as a flicker of pain even when the ghosts in his brain heard her words and started whispering. “Why are you still with him?”

Her eyes narrowed into ice-blue slits. “Do you know how Stick really died? It wasn’t glorious. It was plain, vanilla murder at the hands of one of his own pupils. You’ve at least heard of Elektra, haven’t you? Well, she _thrilled_ at killing people, and that was even before she became undead. She killed Stick like he meant nothing and guess what Matt did, Stone? He saw something good in her. He found a way to love her.” She pursed her lips. “Do I think he’s an idiot for it? Maybe I would if he didn’t love me the same way. And let me tell you something, Stone. You don’t turn your back on a love like that.” Her jaw hardened. “No _matter_ what.”

“How precious.”

Her eyes flashed; what, had she expected him to fall down weeping? “People like you just can’t help walling yourself off from everything good and I’m _glad_ you found Matt. I’m glad you get one small glimpse at what life could be like if you weren’t so blindly, stupidly self-destructive.”

“Well, he and I have a lot in common.”

“He and I have more,” she shot back. “Listen, Stone. Maybe you’ll stick around. Cause trouble. Fine; do what you want. But don’t for a second think you can undo what we’ve fought so hard to build here. Because we have,” she added, almost wearily. “We’ve fought so hard.”

He could believe it.

She finally lowered her gun, as if she could tell. “I don’t know what happened to you and the people who might’ve cared about you. I don’t know if you pushed them away or if they left you because of something you did.”

Once upon a time, those words would’ve hurt.

“I don’t know if you deserved it and I don’t know if you’d fix it, even if you could. All I know is that in every way that matters, Matt is _nothing_ like you.” She took another step, now close enough that he could break her thin neck. “And I think you know that, too.”

Stone shrugged. “And I wish you the best at convincing him of it.”

The intensity in her eyes wavered for only an instant. “You should know something else. I’ve done some digging. You’re not as much of a phantom as you like to think.”

How adorable. “Darling, anything you found is in the past. It can’t hurt me.”

“No, but you don’t want Matt to know about it, do you?”

She was almost clever. “I’m not sure why you’re convinced I care what the Devil thinks of me, but even if I did, you’ve just spelled out yourself why nothing in my past would turn him away from me. He hasn’t left you. He didn’t give up on Stick or even Elektra, though I’ve no problem admitting that she’s far more disturbed than I would ever want to be.”

“I’m not talking about the horrible things you’ve done, Stone. I’m talking about the things you’ve lost. Or maybe I should be more specific. The person you lost.” Her head tilted a little. “Do you know how much compassion Matt would feel for you, if he knew? But you can’t accept compassion. You’ve forgotten what that’s like.” Her lip curled. “If I told Matt, you’d never be able to face him again. You’d be too terrified of pity.”

A face flashed in his mind, a face escaped from the prison he’d built just to keep it locked away.

“A bit unorthodox as a threat,” she whispered, “but no less effective. Am I wrong, Stone?”

“What do you want?” he asked coldly.

“I want you to never set foot in my home again. Or in any place where Ella is. Or in Foggy’s home. Or Matt’s.”

Stone cracked his neck. “Can I visit the roofs?”

“If you’re so desperate for a glimpse at normalcy.”

He put his mouth close to hers. “And what if I’m invited in?”

A sweet smile. “Up to you to decide if it’s worth the risk.”

Karen

Matt had meditated himself into a trance in her bedroom closet, slowing his heartrate enough that it would supposedly be harder to pick up on, especially since Stone, for all his training, apparently didn’t have special senses. He’d also told her he would jolt out of it if she screamed, or if she fired her weapon, or if something else went wrong. It was still a gamble, but he was invested in making this work for her.

Invested to the point of dousing himself in her vanilla perfume to smother his own scent.

She found him curled up in a ball just inside her closet; the air around him was cloying even to her unenhanced nose. When she snapped her finger next to his ear, bringing him back to awareness, he surged upright. “Stone?”

“He’s gone. Stand down, soldier. We’re okay.”

Once he seemed to register the lack of a threat, he started to relax, only to gag as the adrenaline faded. “This is horrible.”

“Really? I thought you liked my perfume.” The vanilla, at least. He despised her floral stuff with a passion.

“I’m _bathed_ in it.” His upper lip curled. “Can I use your shower?”

“You know where to find it.” She hoped he wouldn’t hate the vanilla forever after this. It was one of her favorites.

“Thanks.” He stood up to his full height, eyes screwed shut against what was probably a growing headache, and headed towards her bathroom. “How’d it go?”

“Really well, actually. He’s been coming by to see if I’m still alive.”

He stopped, head cocked. “He was worried about you?”

“Ha. No. He was expecting me to just keel over or something. You know, because we’re dating. But I think I scared him off.”

“Really? Wish I could’ve witnessed it.”

“That would’ve been cute.”

His head tilted in the other direction. “Cute?”

“I said a lot of things about you that would’ve made you blush.”

He looked both distrustful and confused. “To…Stone?” he clarified.

She let him believe what he wanted. “I think…” She paused, sorting through the words in her head. “I think he’s jealous of you.”

“He got ten years with Stick. He learned how to use _swords_.”

“Sometimes it shocks me that you’re not actually a ten-year-old boy. I’m not talking about the swords.”

He rolled his eyes. “What, then?”

“I’ll explain it when you don’t smell like a bottle of vanilla extract.”

“It’s your perfume.”

And, honestly, he smelled delicious. “You have people, Matt. People who love you and people you love. You think Stone has anything like that?”

“He’s not jealous of that, Karen. He thinks he’s better without it.”

“That might be what he says out loud,” she countered softly. “I don’t think that’s what he feels. You know, when he lets himself feel anything.”

Matt still looked unconvinced, but he wasn’t arguing.

“Hurry up and shower, or you’ll be late for Everett’s.”

Something in his eyes suggested that maybe he wouldn’t mind.

“I’m serious,” she warned. “Don’t back out of this.”

“I won’t,” he said dismissively, like he hadn’t considered it. Like he wasn’t still considering it.

She gave him a little shove. “Go.”

Matt

All the sounds and smells of Everett’s failed to drown out the thoughts cycling through his head. He kept gripping and ungripping his cane, switching it from hand to hand. He knew it was obvious to anyone who looked at him that he was a bundle of nerves, but he couldn’t just leave, come back later. The longer he waited to talk to her, the worse it would certainly get.

He was tracking Burnham’s footfalls through Everett’s corridors. It took Burnham a ridiculously long time to finally return, just to say, “She’s okay with seeing you.”

That, right there, was almost enough to break him.

He gave Burnham a flimsy smile. “Lead the way?”

She was standing in the middle of the room with some stuffed toy at her feet like she’d dropped it moments before, small body tense with anxiety, even fear. But her dad was gone; she was safe; there was nothing left for her to be afraid of. Except him.

He tried to say her name and couldn’t quite get it out. But he heard her head move, knew she’d noticed him because her breathing became thin and shallow. For the first time since their introduction, she didn’t run for him.

Suddenly, Matt had zero faith in Burnham’s assertion that she wanted to see him. Burnham was an adult; Ella probably thought she couldn’t say no. So Matt shouldn’t go any closer to her but he couldn’t just stand there either but if he left now he knew he’d never come back.

Which…which was what she wanted.

He edged one foot backwards.

“Matt, where are you going?”

Anywhere else.

“Are you leaving?” she asked timidly. “Mr. Burnham said you wanted to talk to me.”

Okay, great. Further evidence that she hadn’t wanted this, that she’d been pushed into this by the grownups like Burnham and maybe even Foggy, and _Foggy_ , at least, should’ve known better. “Don’t worry about it, Ella. If you’re not up to it, I can come back.”

No, he couldn’t. He couldn’t do this again.

He turned around; she kept silent.

He made it all the way to the door before he heard it, like the words were ripped out of her: “Please don’t go.”

Matt’s hand dropped back to his side before he could touch the doorknob. He kept his face away in the hope of inviting honesty. “I know you know what happened. If you don’t want to see me, I understand.”

“Please don’t go,” she repeated.

“You’re scared of me,” he said quietly.

She picked up her toy and squeezed it. “I don’t want to be.”

An apology wouldn’t mean anything at this point. He turned the knob.

“Please don’t go!”

Pushing the door closed, he whipped around. “What do you want me to do here, Ella?” Tone it down, Murdock; she’s only seven. He softened his voice. “I don’t want to make this worse for you.”

“How?”

He could write a list the length of the Hudson. “By—by saying the wrong thing, or—or making you think this was your fault, or—”

“I know it wasn’t my fault,” she interrupted. “Foggy told me. My dad was gonna hurt you.” She hesitated. “But Foggy said you didn’t want him dead. You tried to help him.” There was a rustling sound as she clasped her hands behind her back. “My dad always tells me to be careful with knives, but I guess he…wasn’t.”

“No, he wasn’t.” All right. So she understood why he’d had to fight her dad and she understood that Matt hadn’t wanted to kill him.

So why was she afraid?

Instinctively, Matt moved to the side so he wasn’t obstructing the door—there was another door at the opposite wall, but he didn’t want to block any escape—and sat down on the floor. He put his glasses in his pocket.

She took three steps closer and also sat down, mirroring him with about ten feet between them.

He could try to explain himself. He could cross-examine her into admitting that she trusted him. Instead, he aimed his gaze at the floor. “Did you know my dad was killed too?”

There was a small sound as her lips parted. “He was?”

“Except…except he wasn’t being a criminal.” Well, Matt didn’t really want to get into the legal complexities of throwing boxing matches. “The thing is, I know what it’s like. But my dad wasn’t like yours; he was great. He was really, really great.” He took a deep breath. “And I guess that makes it easier for me to…be okay. With what happened. I can just…miss him.”

He paused, listening. She was leaning a little bit closer. Maybe.

“But that guy, Stick? He was different. I only got to spend a year or so with him, when I was a kid. He died not too long ago. But when I was with him, I didn’t have anyone else. He helped me through the hardest time of my life, so he…he meant a lot to me. But he hurt me too, in, um, lots of different ways. And sometimes he’d do it on purpose.” Matt blinked a couple times, steadied his breathing again. “And that…that makes it harder to figure out how to, um, miss him.”

“I miss my dad,” Ella said slowly. “But I also _don’t_.”

He smiled sadly. “Exactly.”

Her chin lifted a little. “My dad wasn’t supposed to give me sad colors or yell at me. Everyone says so now.”

He tried to nod encouragingly. “Yeah?”

“And my new family won’t get to do that, right? That’s why I had to talk about my dad and everything? To make sure my new dad wouldn’t do that too?”

It took him too long to respond, to realize that…that this was something she’d been thinking about, beneath her general excitement about getting a new home with a dog or something. “Yeah. They won’t.” And he still kind of didn’t want to say it out loud, in case he somehow jinxed the future, especially when he still didn’t know how Daredevil’s actions would affect her case, but… “They’re gonna love you, Ella. So much.”

She listened to this, then scooted forward and before he knew what was happening, she’d settled into his lap with her head on his shoulder. “You’ll still visit me?”

“All the time,” he whispered.

“Good,” she said firmly.

He breathed in her scent and thought of something else. “But, you know,” he murmured, “for as long as you’re still at Everett’s, you should really try not to fight with the other kids so much.”

She lowered her head as if avoiding his eyes. “I just get upset, and it’s stupid because I always lose. I’m not very good at fighting.”

Matt laughed before he could stop himself. “Sorry. Sorry, that’s not funny. None of this is funny. I just…you sound a lot like me when I was a kid.”

“You’re good at fighting,” she argued.

“I…yeah.” That wasn’t the point, that was far outside the scope of his point. “I was already blind. No one was looking to adopt me and I knew that. I wasn’t _trying_ to throw my future away, but I didn’t really care what happened to me until I got older. Only then did I realize what I would’ve lost if the fights had gotten worse. But you, Ella…” He tilted his head against her hair. “You have so much more. The people here want to help you. Foggy and I wanna help you. And there’s a family out there that…they really want you to be part of it.”

She shifted guiltily. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I’m not saying that to make you feel bad. I just want you to work together with us on this. There’s a whole team trying so hard to get something good for you, and it’ll be more fun if you’re on that team with us.”

“But you still fight,” she said, “even though you have a team too, with Foggy and Karen.”

Matt felt his eyes widen. “That’s not why I…no, you’re right, I just…” He trailed off, hoping she’d move on. But for once, she was patient. Waiting him out. “I do fight, but I’m trying to do it for the right reasons. It’s hard, and I still make a lot of mistakes. But I’m trying to, uh…to be on their team now.”

She seemed to think about this for a while. “Foggy thinks you’re doing a good job.”

Matt wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. “He does?”

She nodded seriously. “He says you love him. He says it’s a law that you love him, and it makes him the safest he ever feels.” She put her hand on his arm, as if to say, _Pay extra attention_. “That’s how it feels for me, too.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Matt, are you _crying_?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are,” she argued.

Great.

A small hand scrubbed at his cheek. “Are you sad?”

“No, no. I’m happy for…” His voice sort of got lost in his throat. There was no word a seven-year-old would understand that could explain what he felt. Actually, he wasn’t sure that there was any word at all. Instead, he pressed his lips to her forehead, trusting that she would feel all the things he couldn’t figure out how to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Karen when she's being cute and fluffy and helping her boys with their problems, but I also think Karen is one of like two people who could intimidate Black Widow.
> 
> Oh and (until I edit it) this chapter is 3,333 words! Lovely.
> 
> And, and, AND this chapter just pushed the Ella series over the 100,000 word mark! I can't believe y'all have stuck with this story so long! You are the absolute best, my dears!


	17. Epilogue

Foggy

“And for the record,” he was saying as he led Matt up the sidewalk, “I still maintain that what you did wasn’t that bad and you’re not bad and please don’t self-flagellate.”

“I’m not—I don’t do that.”

Foggy gave him a long stare, long enough that Matt would be unable to deny that he was in fact being stared at.

Matt scowled. “I can’t act like what I did doesn’t matter.”

“I am extremely disappointed in that awful straw man argument. It wasn’t even a straw man, Matthew. It was, like, made of lint. Literally no one is suggesting that you act like it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m just saying I—”

“And _I’m_ just making sure you understand that no one is going around with balancing scales to make sure your righteous deeds outnumber your bad.” Foggy shuffled him to the right to avoid a kid on a longboard who had no respect for conversations on morality. “You’re separate from your decisions and you, as a person, are good.”

“That’s not what Karen said.”

“Wow, look at that! Different people have different worldviews!”

Matt seemed to waver between arguing and accepting before settling for: “I can’t look at anything.”

“You should go with mine, though. It’s happier.” Foggy unlocked the door at Nelson, Murdock, and Page and caught Matt’s arm before he could zip off into his own office. “Hang on, I wanna show you something. The fruit of my—”

“I don’t wanna know,” he said immediately.

“The fruit of my _labor_ , Matt. Grow up.” He tugged him into his office and positioned him in front of the desk. “So. Please remember everything I just said about how you are a person with intrinsic worth regardless of how much good you actually do for the world before I show you this.”

“I understand.”

He didn’t. Possibly never would. “Just…this isn’t about you earning anything, okay?”

“Okay, Foggy.”

“Okay.” He picked up the thick file from his desk. “You know how you were so worried that Daredevil would contaminate Ella’s case? Well. First of all, friendly remember that Ella isn’t actually a party to the case at all. We represent Everett Children’s Home and Daredevil has never rescued Everett Children’s Home from kidnappers. So, that helps.”

Matt managed a placating smile. “Yeah, that’s great.”

He tried not to be offended that Matt clearly thought that was the best he could do. “But far more importantly!” He slapped the file onto the desk. “I have five other cases here wherein Daredevil was somehow involved with at least two people on opposite sides.”

“Foggy.”

“In the first three of these cases, at least one party moved for dismissal based on Daredevil’s interference. But guess what? All of those motions failed.”

Matt’s mouth, open a second ago, closed.

“In the more recent cases, none of the parties even bothered making a motion. Why, my friend? Because they knew it wouldn’t work.”

“I don’t, uh…”

“You’ve just saved too many good people from too many bad people, buddy.” Foggy clapped his shoulder across the desk. “It’s too hard to draw a pattern from it, too hard to infer any kind of intentionality. After all…” He grinned. “Daredevil’s not a lawyer. He’s just trying to help people. _Lots_ of people, an insane number of people. Like seriously, Brett was super annoyed when I was badgering him into giving me the giant list of—”

“I get it, Foggy.” Matt glanced away, but a small smile fluttered at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, and before you say it? Yeah, I did this research for Ella. I did it because we need to win this case for her. But also?” He walked around the desk, sat on the edge. “I also did it for you, buddy, and I expect you to be okay with that.”

“You’ve been talking to my mom. About…” He gestured vaguely. “About me not wanting other people to fix my mistakes.”

“Nope,” Foggy said, popping the _p_. “See, I may not understand most of what you do or what you’ve gone through or what happens to you. And frankly, I kinda don’t mind not getting it, because…well. A lot of it sucks. But you, Matt?” He found his hand and squeezed it. “Deep down, you’re still the exact same handsome, wounded duck you were when we first met. So thanks to way too many awkward experiences I wish I could un-experience, at least I can say that I do understand _you_.”

Eight-ish hours later, Foggy was suspicious at the distinct lack of Karen collecting him and Matt for the daily review thing. He stuck his head out of his doorway. “Did I miss the we-love-each-other meeting?” Yep, the office was empty. “Hey, Karen!” he yelled. “This was _your_ idea!”

Well, he didn’t have any next steps nailed down in compliance with Matt’s stupid rule, so he really shouldn’t complain. In fact, he was looking forward to the prospect of heading home and spending some quality time ( _I’m waggling my eyebrows, Matt_ ) with Marci.

But then the front door opened. Karen was back and she was holding Matt’s cane. Weird. “Hey, Foggy!” she said brightly. “You ready for the meeting?”

“Where’s Matt? I thought you guys went off together or something. Don’t worry, I’ve resigned myself to third-wheeling for the rest of my career.”

“I wasn’t worrying,” she said sweetly. “Are you ready?”

“We can’t have a meeting. We’re missing both Matt and the hacky sack.”

“You sure?” She withdrew the hacky sack from her bag. “C’mon.”

“I sense a trap,” he announced to the world at large, following her out the front door only to come face-to-face with the sight of Matt standing with a stupid, smug face and an armful of fluffy, wriggling, cream-colored puppiness.

A labradoodle.

A freakin’ labradoodle.

“Foggy, this is Frank.” Karen scratched the dog’s ears, causing its tail to beat frantically against Matt’s ribs.

“The list!” Foggy shouted, and the puppy cocked its head dramatically. “Matt, you violated the list!”

“Did not.”

“You did! Getting a dog was in the third category! You had to talk to me!”

“Actually, I just had to talk to more than one person.” He adjusted the puppy’s weight. “So I talked to Karen and I talked to Ella.”

“Ella’s a minor! She doesn’t count.”

“We never stipulated to that. She had a lot of opinions, by the way.”

Unbelievable. “Does your apartment even allow pets?”

“Well, I am a semi-decent lawyer, and she's very well-behaved.”

He turned on Karen. “And you! You didn’t tell me!”

She was offering the hacky sack to the dog, which nibbled on it experimentally. “Didn’t realize I had to.”

“You didn’t,” Matt told her. He held out the puppy. “Foggy, wanna snuggle?”

Foggy wrinkled his nose. “It's a she? I thought you said its name is Frank.”

“It’s a girl named Frank.”

Reluctantly, Foggy accepted the dog. It actually smelled all right, which shouldn’t be a surprise. A good bath routine would obviously be a non-negotiable.

And okay, all right, it was cute. And Ella was probably exploding with excitement. But it was still half poodle. And constituted a massive betrayal because Foggy had included dogs on the Bad Decision Spectrum not because he thought dogs were a bad decision per se but to ensure that if there was a dog somewhere in Matt’s future, Foggy would be involved in the process of picking out said dog. “I can only assume you named her after me,” he said, trying to regain some dignity. Then a horrible thought dawned on him and he looked at Karen. “No. _No_. Not Castle?”

“It’s deliberately ambiguous as a namesake,” Matt said in his cocky Professor-Baldwin-wrote-my-letter-of-recommendation voice.

“I can’t believe this.” Foggy jerked his head back as the puppy tried to lick his face. “What, is she supposed to be a service dog? Or for, like, emotional support?”

Matt opened his mouth and Foggy half-expected him to say something supremely stupid like _I don't need emotional support_ , but he was distracted by Karen offering his cane to him. “You want this back?”

Shaking his head, he reached for Foggy. No, not for Foggy. For stupid Frank. Foggy passed the dog back and tried to maintain his indignation, which was really hard when Matt sort of pressed his face into the puppy’s fur, closed his eyes, and just _inhaled_.

“I thought you hated dogs,” Foggy grumbled.

“I do,” Matt breathed.

Foggy squinted at him, then at Karen, who didn’t even try to fight back a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FLUFFFFFFF as promised. I just think labradoodles are adorable. The first image here is totally what Frank looks like: https://www.buzzfeed.com/hjupiter/21-reasons-labradoodles-are-wonderful-96yn  
> So I came into this AO3 world about two months ago and you, dear readers and commenters, have so far surpassed what I hoped for. I’m so thankful for every kudo, comment, and bookmark. Thank you for exploring these stories with me!
> 
> Speaking of which, Eccho asked about a Christmas story, so stay tuned for a companion fic! (I think that’s the technical term?)
> 
> And finally…I’m a couple thousand words into a fourth story and I swear it’s your guys’ fault. Currently this last (probably) story is called “Who Needs Air?” so if you wanna see more Karen+Stone interaction, more Ella, and (of course) more of Matt suffering, stick around!
> 
> *snorts* Stick around hahaha.

**Author's Note:**

> Work and chapter titles taken from "Young Diaries" by Ilia. If you want to get a sense for where this fic is headed, check out this (melodramatic) lyric video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-azOU9DRMIE


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